FOR a band capable of playing weird, often electronic, regularly esoteric music, which seems further and further away from rock, Radiohead look a lot like a major rock band. And not just because there is the obligatory consciousness and fund-raising stall (for Tibet, as usual) in the lobby.

The tickets for their shows sold in minutes, online chatter has been hectic for weeks and the crowd building up all evening was all ages, all sizes and all buzzing. What would they open with? Would there be anything from The Bends, the first of their generation-defining albums? And would Thom Yorke do that weird, all limbs, no bones dance?

Powerful and relentless ... Thom Yorke. Credit:Edwina Pickles

Not bad for five, and on this tour, six, Englishmen who try hard for unprepossessing when off stage and are buried in their songs when on stage.

But then they didn't ask for iconic status, it has been thrust on them and they've never quite got the hang of it. Which may be part of their genius: to be central to this story and simultaneously just out of focus.