Tour Highlights from 'Hollywood Authentic'
A photo of Thom reaching down to adjust the "Shift" knob on his Earthquaker Devices Hoof V2 fuzz (Greg Williams).
Last week, Greg Williams made a series of Instagram posts sharing photos from last November. The photos document Radiohead's visit to Italy, with photos not only of their concert in Bologna but also the lead-up and aftermath. The photos were taken for a cover story in Williams's magazine Hollywood Authentic.
Although the most surprising images are likely those taken backstage — such as Thom taking a nap post-yoga — the photos from soundcheck at the Unipol Arena provide some interesting gear details too. Though we've already covered most of this gear on our 2025 Tour Page, seeing things up close provide some new insights.
Though we've seen photos of Thom's board on the recent tour (with all pedals listed here), it's a rare treat to see individual settings!
From and center is the Earthquaker Devices Hoof V2 fuzz. This pedal found its way onto Thom's board during the Smile's summer 2022 tour, and it stuck around for the rest of that band's tours. Here, Thom is adjusting the Hoof's "Shift" knob, which adjusts "mid content." The Hoof is loosely based on the circuit of the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a pedal known for its huge, mid-scooped sound. The Shift knob makes the circuit more versatile by making those mids adjustable.
Thom's Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano reverb is blocked by his hand, but the settings on the Death By Audio Echo Dream 2 sitting beside it are clear. The Echo Dream 2 also made its way onto Thom's board during the Smile era, and its chaotic sound is particularly associated with the single You Will Never Work In Television Again. Thom appears to have most of the knobs just shy of noon, giving a sound with equal amounts of fuzz and short, modulated delay.
The Strymon Timeline's settings can be ignored, since they're overridden by the currently selected preset, but it looks like that preset is titled "SLAPBACK" (a common term for a short echo with a single repeat). The Boss RE-20 Space Echo is set fairly atmospheric, but from the position of the mode switch it appears that the reverb is disabled (in spite of a label for the reverb level control).
The large, knobless pedal is actually used for Thom's vocal microphone. It allows him to temporarily send the mic's signal to a second signal path.
And perhaps the greatest mystery of all has been solved: the shape of the "STREAM/CENT" button and the extra text above it show that Thom is using a Boss TU-3 tuner, not a TU-2.
As on Radiohead's 2018 tour, Jonny brought two modular synthesizer racks. Each rack has the same set of modules made by Analogue Systems. On past tours, both racks were used for Idioteque, with one case serving as a backup for the other. On this tour, the rack on the left was configured differently for Sit Down. Stand Up. For more info on the modular, we have a full writeup (including modulargrid mockups) on Jonny's page.
In the photo of Jonny's modular, we can see the changes that Jonny made to his "drum machine" patch in order to play Sit Down. Stand Up. A notable difference is that he connected his sequencer's TRIG 1 output directly to his RS-80 envelope generator to trigger a kick drum. This avoids the need for the RS-50 module, which he uses on Idioteque to convert the control voltages from the sequencer's knob outputs into triggers of specified length.
We can also see that the TRIG 2 output is used to trigger Snare sounds, with a similar setup to Idioteque. And similarly, the TRIG 3 output (which outputs a trigger on every step) is connected to the clock divider. However, in contrast to Idioteque, the clock divider's outputs are used to trigger hihats and beeping tones, rather than changing the pitch of the beeps. That's because the beeps on Sit Down receive pitch CV from the top sequencer row, allowing Jonny to create more varied beeps and bloops.
Thom's Nylon-String Guitar
Thom playing a classical guitar backstage. The exact instrument is unknown, but it's different from the Taylor electro-acoustic classical that Thom used for the Smile's performances in 2024. Perhaps this is the one used for the recording of The Smile's Bodies Laughing (full analysis of that song here).
A photo of Greg taking a photo of Thom with one of his Martin acoustics (Colin Greenwood via Greg Williams). In the foreground, we can see Colin's two MIDI keyboards for the tour: a Roland PCR-500 (bottom) and an Arturia MiniLab 3 in black (top).
