Thom Yorke was nearly done playing a solo show at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles last night when a surprise Atoms For Peace reunion materialized. Nigel Godrich is already a part of Yorke’s solo band, so it only took Flea and drummer Joey Waronker to flesh out the rest of the band (though percussionist Mauro Refosco was absent.) They played Yorke’s 2006 song “Atoms For Peace,” the track that gave the band their name when they went on tour with him in 2010. This was their first performance since the conclusion of their 2013 Amok tour. Check out video of the moment right here.
Yorke plays another show at the Orpheum Theater before wrapping up the tour at the Chelsea in Las Vegas. It will cap off a very busy year for Yorke in which he played 24 massive shows with Radiohead, recorded the soundtrack to the horror film Suspiria, gigged at theaters all over North America with his solo project and learned that he would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. Whether he plans on attending the ceremony is another question.
Yorke’s plans for 2019 are unclear at the moment beyond three European festivals he’s playing in July. If they’re anything like his current solo shows, they’ll be heavy on songs from The Eraser and Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes and very, very light on Radiohead songs beyond the occasional rendition of “Spectre,” “Reckoner” or “Glass Eyes.”
An Atoms For Peace project of some sort in 2019 becomes feasible once Flea completes an Australian Red Hot Chili Peppers tour in March, but as of now there are no indications that is even in the discussion stage. But the odds of that happening feel a little higher now after last night’s reunion.