Thom Yorke took Radiohead‘s “No Sponsors” stance to new levels last night as Radiohead played their first Canadian gig of the ‘Kid A’ tour.
Performing before an ecstatic capacity 8,000 strong crowd at the Air Canada Centre, Yorke took the opportunity to introduce every song in the set with a satirical namecheck. ‘Airbag’, for example, was prefaced by Yorke : “Brought to you by Ford“.
The band’s recent activity has been heavily influenced by the Naomi Klein book No Logo to the extent that they toured Europe in a tent to avoid corporately sponsored venues.
The Toronto show mirrored last week’s already-legendary Roseland show in New York in that Radiohead played rearrangements from ‘Kid A’ and previewed unreleased songs which may appear on another album which Johnny Greenwood recently told a Canadian radio station might be on sale around April next year.
The major difference to the Toronto set from previous shows was the absence of the horn section which the band had used to stunning effect on ‘The National Anthem’ in New York.