This should have been a good year for Radiohead, with an American tour, the 20th anniversary reissue of “OK Computer” and a gig headlining in front of around 100,000 at the UK’s Glastonbury Festival.
Instead, they’ve gotten themselves into a political row, thanks to this Wednesday’s long-scheduled show at Park HaYarkon in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Back in April, dozens of artists and other public figures including Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Thurston Moore, Julie Christie and Archbishop Desmond Tutu petitioned Radiohead to cancel the show because of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Doing so, according to an open letter posted online, would be “one small step to help pressure Israel to end its violation of basic rights and international law.”
In June, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke slammed the “patronizing” petitioners in an interview with Rolling Stone. “It’s deeply disrespectful to assume that we’re . . . so retarded we can’t make these decisions ourselves,” Yorke says, adding that the band’s guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, is married to Arab-Jewish visual artist Sharona Katan.
The controversy has followed Radiohead around the world. Earlier this month, crowd members disrupted a show in Glasgow by flying Palestinian flags. Yorke muttered, “Some f–king people” repeatedly before seeming to flip them off.
Then, last week, British director Ken Loach criticized Yorke in the Independent, saying the singer’s reaction “suggests to me that they only want to hear one side — the one that supports apartheid.” In response, Yorke pointed out Radiohead has played in Israel for decades, and “[doesn’t] endorse [Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [Donald] Trump, but we still play in America.”
The back-and-forth has inflamed passions, but Radiohead’s connection to Israel is far greater than Waters, Loach or anyone petitioning them to pull their upcoming Tel Aviv show probably realizes. It’s the place where the band first became rock stars.
Twenty-five years ago, the guys in Radiohead — Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, bassist Colin Greenwood, guitarist Ed O’Brien and drummer Phil Selway — were nobodies, with little hope of becoming anything more.
Their first release, the “Drill” EP, barely made a dent when it came out in May 1992 in their native UK. (When the band tried to buy that EP at a record store on the week of release, the owner tried to give him one for free because it was the only way he could get rid of his stock.)
A single, “Creep,” limped out that summer and flopped. Toward the end of the year, the band was opening for fellow British nobodies Kingmaker on a bill that included a juggler — and Radiohead had to go on before the juggler.
With rumors swirling that their label might drop them before they’d even released an album, British music bible NME destroyed Radiohead during a live review published in December 1992. Writer Keith Cameron described them as a “pitiful, lily-livered excuse for a rock ’n’ roll group.” The publication also ran unflattering pictures of Yorke, calling him “ugly” to boot.
The band’s first album, “Pablo Honey,” did finally emerge in February 1993, but the response was middling at best.
While they were crashing and burning at home, word filtered through from Israel that DJ Yoav Kutner had taken a shine to “Creep,” and was playing the song regularly on an army radio station. The song flew up the charts, and the band quickly booked a run of gigs in Israel in the spring of 1993.
“While we were all down in the dumps we heard from Israel that it was high in their charts, so we went there and it proved it could be successful as long as people heard it,” Greenwood told Q Magazine in 2001.
On arrival, they instantly went from “ugly” sisters to Cinderellas. Enraptured customs officials asked Yorke to sing an a cappella version of “Creep” before letting them enter the country. In Tel Aviv, the band was mobbed by fans, and Greenwood met Katan (they would marry two years later). At the final night of the band’s three shows in the city, they played their longest set to date, which included two versions of “Creep” (both gleefully sung by the crowd) and a shout-out to Kutner.
The trip sparked a domino effect for Radiohead. American radio soon picked up on “Creep” and the song gradually rose up the charts in 1993. The track also earned a rerelease in the UK, and finally landed in the Top 10. The band’s success eased label pressures, allowed them the possibility of recording a second album (1995’s “The Bends”) and, best of all, it meant that they never had to tour with a juggler ever again.
It’s impossible to deny that attitudes toward Israel have changed vastly since Radiohead first arrived there in 1993. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, started in 2005, is just one example of international attempts to isolate the country. Still, artists as varied as Metallica, Elton John, Madonna and Justin Bieber have ignored such boycotts and played there in recent years.
But for Radiohead, the pull toward Israel goes deeper than political considerations; it’s where the band first meant something — and they’re unlikely to forget that, given the success they’ve had since.
Getting that kind of resounding endorsement at a time when nobody wants to know you is bound to foster a unique bond. Radiohead’s loyalty is not to the Israeli government, but to the Israeli music fans who wanted them to live, breathe and be a part of the human race, when so many others simply wished that they would disappear.