Why so green and lonely? Cheer up: Radiohead are revisiting 2003’s Hail to the Thief with a new live album, out digitally today and on vinyl Oct. 31.
Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009 includes performances from that era in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, and Buenos Aires. You can hear a sizzling “There There” from March 2009 below. The release spans 12 songs, nearly matching the track list of the original album, with only “Backdrifts” and “A Punch Up at a Wedding” omitted.
Hail to the Thief, Radiohead’s much-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed sister albums Kid A and Amnesiac, celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. The album, which contains fan favorites like “2+2=5” and “Myxomatosis,” marked the band’s final release on EMI. It’s the longest Radiohead album, and the band has since expressed regrets about its length; in 2008, Thom Yorke even shared an alternative, slimmed-down track list.
In a statement, Yorke said the new live album was born out of Hamlet Hail to the Thief, the recent stage production in the U.K. that mashed up the early-1600s Shakespeare play and the early-2000s LP. “In the process of thinking of how to build arrangements for the Shakespeare Hamlet/Hail to the Thief theatre production, I asked to hear some archive live recordings of the songs,” he said. “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. We very much hope you enjoy them.”
Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009 arrives at a moment of reflection for Yorke, who is currently showing the retrospective Radiohead art exhibit This is What You Get in the band’s hometown of Oxford, England. The live album follows the band’s archival releases for OK Computer (2017’s OKNOTOK 1997 2017) and Kid A and Amnesiac (2021’s Kid A Mnesia), each pegged to their 20-year anniversaries. (Earlier this year, they commemorated the 30th anniversary of 1995’s The Bends with an unearthed acoustic performance by Yorke.) It’s their first-ever full-length live album, following the eight-track 2001 live release I Might Be Wrong.
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Last year, during a solo show in Auckland, New Zealand, Yorke played Hail to the Thief‘s “Sail to the Moon” for the first time in 16 years. (The most hardcore fans noted that it was his first solo rendition of the track in even longer.)
Radiohead wrapped their most recent tour, pegged to 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool, in 2018. In the years since, Yorke and guitarist Jonny Greenwood formed the side project the Smile with former Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner. They’ve released three Smile albums: 2022’s A Light for Attracting Attention and Wall of Eyes and Cutouts, both released in 2024. Yorke then teamed up with producer Mark Pritchard for 2025’s Tall Tales.
In December 2024, bassist Colin Greenwood spoke to Rolling Stone about his photo book How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead — and the band’s private reunion earlier that year, reports of which prompted months of speculation and rumors. “It was just basically to check in with each other, I suppose, because we hadn’t done it for so long,” he told us. “I guess it was also because I think maybe Thom and Jonny were going off to do some stuff [with the Smile]…. It was something we could all do cause we were all around that time. It was just really nice just to run through stuff… We ran through, like, The Bends. Kid A stuff. We ran through loads of stuff … We enjoy being with each other. So let’s leave on a high.”
The one-off LP pressing of Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009 is available for preorder now, in both red and cyan-colored vinyl.
Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009 Track List
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Side A
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 B
1. “The Gloaming”
2. “There, There”
3. “I Will”
4. “Myxomatosis”
5. “Scatterbrain”
6. “A Wolf at the Door”
