Radiohead / Hail to the Thief – Live Recordings 2003-2009

Radiohead are to release a live album with tracks from their 2003 studio album Hail To The Thief.

Hail To The Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009 comprises live versions of 12 of the 14 songs from the original album. It replicates the original running order, though no live versions of ‘Backdrifts’ or ‘A Punch Up At A Wedding’ are included, despite both songs being performed regularly live on the accompanying album tour.

The album is compiled from four concerts, in London, Dublin, Buenos Aires and Amsterdam and was mixed by Ben Baptie and mastered by Matt Colton. It is released digitally today and will receive a vinyl-and CD physical release in October, with the press release stating the vinyl will be a one-off pressing. Vinyl formats include a opaque red vinyl edition from indie stores and cyan coloured vinyl edition from Radiohead’s website.

It’s only Radiohead’s second live album, following 2001’s I Might Be Wrong, and is the band’s first release since Kid A Mnesia in 2021 which offered previously unreleased material from the sessions for Kid A and Amnesia.

This live album of Hail To The Thief happened as a result of Thom Yorke helping to create the play Hamlet Hail To The Thief with the Royal Shakespeare Company. It opened at Manchester Aviva Studios in May, before running at Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in June.

Radiohead have long been critical of Hail To The Thief, which had been designed as a return to a more immediate way of working following the protracted sessions for Kid A and Amnesia. Yorke told Spin in 2006 that: “We wanted to do things quickly and I think the songs suffered,” while Ed O’Brien stated the album has too many songs. In 2008, Colin Greenwood described the album to Mojo as “a holding process” in between its predecessors and the following In Rainbows.

I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played. I barely recognised us.

Thom Yorke

Yorke now says the old live recordings helped him to reassess Hail To The Thief while working on Hamlet Hail To The Thief. He said: “In the process of thinking of how to build arrangements for Hamlet Hail To The Thief, I asked to hear some archive live recordings of the songs.

“I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played. I barely recognised us, and it helped me find a way forward. We decided to get these live recordings mixed and released. (It would have been insane to keep them for ourselves). It has all been a very cathartic process.”

Radiohead have worked on solo projects since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, but it’s strongly rumoured that they will reunite for a tour next year.

Hail To The Thief – Live Recordings 2003-2009 will be released on 31 October 2025, via XL.

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Radiohead

Hail to the thief live recordings - vinyl LP

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Hail to the thief live recordings - CD edition

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Tracklisting

Hail to the Thief: Live Recordings 2003-2009 Radiohead / Vinyl LP

• Black and coloured vinyl

  • Side 1

    1. 2+2=5
    2. Sit Down. Stand Up
    3. Sail To The Moon
    4. Go To Sleep
    5. Where I End And You Begin
    6. We Suck Young Blood

    Side 2

    1. The Gloaming
    2. There There
    3. I Will
    4. Myxomatosis
    5. Scatterbrain
    6. A Wolf At The Door
• CD edition Compact Disc
  • 1. 2+2=5
    2. Sit Down. Stand Up
    3. Sail To The Moon
    4. Go To Sleep
    5. Where I End And You Begin
    6. We Suck Young Blood
    7. The Gloaming
    8. There There
    9. I Will
    10. Myxomatosis
    11. Scatterbrain
    12. A Wolf At The Door