Watch Thom Yorke debut new song ‘Back in the Game’ at the start of solo tour

Thom Yorke performed a new song and unearthed deep cuts from both his Radiohead and solo catalogs at the first show on the Australasian leg of the singer’s Everything Tour.

Playing Christchurch, New Zealand’s Wolfbrook Arena on Wednesday, Yorke debuted a new song called “Back in the Game,” a purported collaboration with electronic music artist Mark Pritchard; the song’s title first emerged in a reported listing of a dozen new songs co-written by the two artists.

The Everything Tour lived up to its name with a set list that spanned Yorke’s entire catalog, from acoustic renditions of Radiohead classics (“Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” “Karma Police,” “How to Disappear Completely” ), to tracks from side projects ( Atoms for Peace’s “Default,” Smile’s “Laughing Bodies” from their just-released clippings), to collaborations (“Rabbit in Your Headlight” by UNKLE), to his solo songs to his I would sigh score and more.

The Christchurch concert also featured some cuts that have never been played, including Radiohead’s first performance. amnesiac opener “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box” from 2012 and the first performance of “Hearing Damage”, Yorke’s contribution to the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack in 2009.

Yorke’s Everything Tour is scheduled to run until November, with the singer following the New Zealand and Australia trek with a string of dates in Singapore and Japan. After that, Yorke will see the staging of Hamlet Hail the thiefanother Radiohead-related project, but don’t assume there will be a reunion in the near future.

“I’m not aware of it and I don’t really give a shit about flying,” Yorke said of the Radiohead rumors. “No offense to anyone and thanks for caring. But I think we’ve earned the right to do what makes sense to us without having to explain ourselves or answer to anyone else’s historical idea of ​​what we should do.”

He added about the lack of pressure he feels to live up to Radiohead’s success: “I don’t think we feel the need to live up to anything. That seems like a non-issue. We’re in that position privileged place where we can still make music thanks to Radiohead, so no complaints.”