CONCERTS AND TOURING 35
F orty years ago, Thom Yorke, would go on to become Radiohead and reshape the sound of alternative rock. Through nine studio albums, six Grammy awards, seven top ten UK singles and an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Radiohead’s had a long run – but it’s not over yet. In September 2025, the group announced a European tour and just two months later, that 20-nighter kicked off with four nights in Madrid to a sold-out arena of around 17,000 fans. From Spain to Italy, England, Denmark and Germany, the 2025 Radiohead tour brought all five of the band’s founding members together – adding Chris Vatalaro on drums – for their first live performance in six years. Each venue supported their in-the-round-style staging – a ‘rarity’ for a concert tour, according to Hammy Patel, project manager at Universal Pixels. “There’s a lot of complexity that comes with putting those shows together,” he says. The company collaborated with Wonder Works on the tour’s visual tech, providing a bespoke solution made of mobile LED panels, cameras and media servers. Colin and Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway formed On a Friday, an English band that “Radiohead tours – they are different,” Patel suggests. “The creative decisions they tend to make around how their shows look are different from the norm.” And while he wasn’t involved in those decisions per se, Patel understood the band’s aims and found the tech needed to achieve them. NO SURPRISES? Universal Pixels has a long-standing relationship with ‘various guises of Radiohead’, according to Patel. “Last year, we put together Thom Yorke’s Everything tour; the year before, we also did The Smile,” he shares – the latter being a (relatively) new group formed by Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and drummer Tom Skinner. The band approached Universal Pixels in April, when the 2025 Radiohead tour was still in ideation. “‘Radiohead might be looking to go out. This is what might happen. Can you keep your thinking caps
on?’” Patel recalls hearing. “Towards the end of June, we got a spec list.” Working with creative director Sean Evans, video director Ellie Clement and lighting designer Pryderi Baskerville, Patel had ‘a lot of existing relationships with a lot of people’. These connections proved critical when decisions were finalised in September – leaving just one month for Universal Pixels to source kit in time for rehearsals. “To pull that off with only a month after confirmation that this is going ahead and this is happening... that was the challenge.” LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION While Radiohead’s performance might have appeared simple – no walkways, acrobatics or pyrotechnics involved – it was far from it. “The whole system was running in 4K,” begins Patel, who sourced 26 cameras, including Blackmagic Micro G2s and Panasonic PTZs. The G2s “were used in static positions, mostly around keyboards, pianos and drums. They were meant to be hidden,” he says. The PTZs provided movement. “Four of them were on-track cameras, two of them were on heads to go up and down, so there was a lot of movement without having a manned person blocking the audience’s view,” he explains. “Everything needed to be minimalistic.” Balancing a total of 26 camera feeds meant dealing with ‘a lot of data’, according to Patel, “and a lot of signals that needed to go back and forth. If you think about the conventional stage, there is always space below or around it where the video department might set up their system. But that wasn’t the case here,” he stresses. Instead, Universal Pixels and the video team established three distinct areas: ‘Video World’ or back of house, front of While Radiohead’s performance might have appeared simple, it was far from it
There was a 360° screen design made up of 12 Roe Visual Vanish V8 LED panels
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