So Naturally We’re All Going to Pretend We’re Emotionally Stable
If you don’t love Radiohead, you can leave now.
Not really. But seriously, how the hell do you not love Radiohead?
There are bands you listen to because they’re fun. There are bands you listen to because they make you want to drive too fast. There are bands you listen to because you were 19, somebody handed you a beer, and suddenly you decided you understood the meaning of life.
Then there is Radiohead.
Radiohead makes music for basically every miserable, beautiful, confusing, alcohol-assisted, existentially satisfying moment a human being can manufacture. You can put on OK Computer when the world feels like it’s coming apart, Kid A when you aren’t entirely sure what planet you’re living on, In Rainbows when you’re falling in love, and A Moon Shaped Pool when you’re sitting in the dark wondering where the last 20 years went. There is apparently a Radiohead album for every emotional emergency, which is either incredibly convenient or a little concerning.
Now the band has given fans another reason to stare at their phones and refresh tour pages like people who have forgotten how calendars work.
Radiohead are returning to Australia in 2027 for their first Australian shows since 2012, with 16 arena performances scheduled across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The Australian run begins May 3 at RAC Arena in Perth before moving to Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena and then Sydney’s Afterpay Arena.
And because Radiohead apparently enjoys making things complicated in the most Radiohead way possible, these aren’t your typical one-night-here, one-night-there arena dates. The band is settling into each city for multiple performances, giving fans four nights in Perth, six in Melbourne and six in Sydney.
RADIOHEAD AUSTRALIA 2027
Perth – RAC Arena
May 3, 4, 6 and 7
Melbourne – Rod Laver Arena
May 13, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 20
Sydney – Afterpay Arena
May 25, 26, 28, 29, 31 and June 1
The Australian dates are part of a larger 2027 run that also includes five performances at GMO Arena Saitama in Japan in June. So while the band has confirmed that there will be no additional 2027 dates beyond the announced Australia and Japan shows, technically Australia isn’t the only place Radiohead will be playing next year. Because apparently even Radiohead can’t escape geography.
The announcement follows Radiohead’s return to live performance in 2025 after a lengthy period away from the road. The band had spent years exploring individual projects, with Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood forming The Smile, while the other members continued their own musical work. Their 2025 European performances finally gave fans a chance to see the five-piece together again, and now Australia gets its turn.
And yes, we’re already thinking about America.
Because if you’re going to drag Radiohead back onto the stage after all these years, you can’t reasonably expect the rest of the world to sit quietly and behave itself.
THE BAND THAT MADE SADNESS SOUND INCREDIBLE
Radiohead’s importance isn’t really measured by awards, although they’ve collected plenty of those too.
The band has four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200: Kid A, Amnesiac, In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool. Kid A became the band’s first U.S. chart-topper in 2000, an especially impressive achievement considering it was hardly the sort of record designed to make mainstream radio programmers spill their coffee with excitement.
Then there’s OK Computer, which didn’t just become one of the defining albums of the 1990s. It helped establish Radiohead as a band willing to completely ignore the idea that they needed to make music everybody understood immediately.
Their biggest Billboard Hot 100 single remains “Creep,” which peaked at No. 34 in the United States. That’s actually a funny statistic when you consider how enormous Radiohead became. One of the most influential bands of the modern rock era never needed a string of American Top 10 singles to build a career. They built it with albums, experimentation, obsessive fans and songs that somehow get better the more times you listen to them.
Radiohead have also won three Grammy Awards, all for Best Alternative Music Album: OK Computer in 1998, Kid A in 2001 and In Rainbows in 2009. The band has received 18 Grammy nominations overall, according to the Recording Academy.
They’ve also picked up an MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction for “There There,” while the band’s broader collection of honors includes Ivor Novello Awards and plenty of other recognition. And in 2019, Radiohead were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which feels less like an award and more like somebody finally admitting the obvious.
The more interesting achievement, though, is how Radiohead managed to remain commercially successful while consistently making records that challenged their own audience.
Most bands figure out what people like and then make increasingly polished versions of it.
Radiohead figured out what people liked and apparently decided to see how far they could stretch it before everyone started asking questions.
That worked out pretty well.
RADIOHEAD AND THE MOVIES
Radiohead’s relationship with film is almost as interesting as the band’s relationship with music.
Their songs have found their way into everything from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which famously featured “Exit Music (For a Film)” and “Talk Show Host,” to Children of Men, where “Life in a Glasshouse” appeared, and Vanilla Sky, which used “Everything in Its Right Place.”
Then there is A Scanner Darkly, Prisoners, The Prestige, Black Mirror and countless other films and television projects that have discovered something filmmakers figured out a long time ago: if you need a scene to suddenly feel more emotionally complicated, put on Radiohead.
“Exit Music (For a Film)” was practically built for cinematic misery, which is probably why it has appeared in so many places. “Everything in Its Right Place” has become another favorite for directors looking to make an audience question reality, their life choices, or possibly whether they should have ordered that second drink.
And then there’s Thom Yorke.
Yorke hasn’t exactly turned into a conventional movie star, despite what the internet occasionally seems to suggest. His major contribution to film has been through music rather than acting. He created the haunting score for Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 version of Suspiria, marking his first feature-film soundtrack, and the track “Suspirium” earned a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
He also contributed “Daily Battles” to Edward Norton’s 2019 film Motherless Brooklyn, with Flea appearing on Yorke’s version of the song.
And if we’re talking about Radiohead members turning up in movies, Jonny Greenwood has become one of the band’s most important cinematic forces. His film-score work with director Paul Thomas Anderson alone includes There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice and Phantom Thread, while he also scored films including You Were Never Really Here.
So perhaps Radiohead hasn’t exactly become Hollywood’s favorite acting troupe. They did, however, become one of cinema’s favorite musical weapons.
That’s arguably more appropriate.
NOW WE WAIT
And this is where the Radiohead story gets interesting for American fans.
The band has announced Australia and Japan for 2027. Nothing beyond those dates has been announced, and that means Radiohead fans in the United States are once again left to perform the ancient ritual of checking the internet every 11 minutes hoping someone has accidentally leaked a tour date.
Will they come to the States?
God, we hope so.
Radiohead aren’t a band that needs to tour constantly. In fact, part of what makes seeing them feel important is that they don’t. When they disappear for years, the music doesn’t become irrelevant. It becomes more necessary.
That’s especially true for anyone who has lived with these records for decades.
I’ve had Radiohead on my playlist for years because their music seems to understand that life isn’t one particular mood. Sometimes you’re happy. Sometimes you’re miserable. Sometimes you’re celebrating. Sometimes you’re drinking with friends at 1 a.m. and somebody puts on “Karma Police” and suddenly everyone in the room becomes a philosopher.
That’s Radiohead.
They’ve made music for the good days, the bad days and all the weird little hours in between.
So congratulations to Australia. Seriously.
Enjoy the shows.
We’ll be over here in America pretending we’re perfectly fine with this.
We’re not.
And if Radiohead eventually announces U.S. dates, don’t expect us to act normal about it.
KEEP UP WITH THE MUSIC
If you’re on Florida’s East Coast and you’re tired of finding out about concerts after everybody else already went, there’s a much easier solution than refreshing Radiohead’s website at three in the morning.
The Static Live Music Calendar App tracks live music and events across Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Ormond Beach, Flagler Beach and surrounding communities, with plans to expand into additional cities as Static Live grows.
Because missing the concert you would’ve loved because you didn’t know it was happening is a spectacularly human problem.
Download the Static Live app for iOS and Android and keep up with what’s happening around Florida’s East Coast.
