Standing on the stage of this porn theatre gives you a terrible sense of deja vu. It's not just any old porn theatre: it used to belong to the ex-King of Italy, Umberto I, whose palatial residence we are now poking our noses around. This is at the express order of the members of Radiohead, who have just finished a gig outside in the ex-King's front garden. "Go in there, it's great" orders guitarist Ed O'Brien, explaining that said doorway leads you into a small theatre where King Umberto used to stage his own private "erotic" revues. We duly go in, stand on the stage and explain to the bewildered Radiohead man that all it reminds us of is a dolls'-house version of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. And no, he has never heard of Maureen Potter.
This is the Villa Reale, north of Milan, where Radiohead, aka probably the best band in the world right now, have broken a near two-year silence to preview songs from their breathlessly awaited new album. They've spent the intervening time holed up in the studio working on the follow-up to the most critically acclaimed album of the 1990s, OK Computer.
Rumours of nervous breakdowns and Oasis-style spats are laughed off by the band as they hang around in a courtyard, swigging beers and spraying disgusting-smelling anti-mosquito spray over their bare limbs. "Yes, we've heard all those band meltdown rumours too," says Ed. "I think it's all got to do with unfounded internet speculation. The album did, in fact, go really well - at the moment we're trying to settle on a title for it - and it's going to be out just in time for our Irish gigs in early October."
Three hours earlier and the band shuffle onstage for their open-air slot, smiling sheepishly and speaking the odd greeting in more-than-passable Italian (they are university educated, after all). They open the set with a new song, Optimistic, a sinuous acoustic number that seems to fit the title until some minor-key strings and the occasional scream remind us that this is indeed the band who proudly deal in "angst - and highly profitable angst at that". The set soon follows a familiar pattern: new song, something from The Bends, new song, something from OK Computer. Given that this is the first time that anybody has heard the new material, the ecstatic crowd reaction is reserved for anything from The Bends, their most melody-driven and user-friendly work. Street Spirit and Just sound just dandy, but there's a heightening of drama as they play the magnificent Fake Plastic Trees - which prompts ye olde wave your lighter in the air moments - nowadays, though, the ritual is accompanied by waving your mobile in the air so your friends back home can hear too.
Of the other five new songs (all intended for the album), Everything In Its Right Place impressed most, with Thom Yorke's voice being instantly sampled and looped over a sparse piano sound. How To Disappear sounds like something which wouldn't have been out of place on The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead; while Morning Bell (no guitar, just keyboards), National Anthem (fuzzy and full of distorted loops) and In Limbo (is that a jazz signature I hear?) all suggest that the new album is going for an even more darkly ambient feel than OK Computer. It's something Ed O'Brien acknowledges later, saying that all the tracks on the new album will be linked by "ambient intermezzos".
There's a lot more to the band, though, than multi-million selling gloom 'n' doom. The five-piece first met at a private boys' school in a small town outside Oxford. Sharing a common interest in "Joy Division and The Smiths" they hooked up together, but were never a serious band until they had all graduated from their respective universities.
Named after a Talking Heads song, their early sound owed as much to My Bloody Valentine (big, distorted guitars) as it did to Pink Floyd (eerie atmospherics). They went down the "overnight sensation" route in 1993 when their first single, Creep, became a massive international hit, its angst-drenched lyrics ("I'm a Creep, I'm a Weirdo") making the song an alternative rock anthem along the lines of Beck's Loser.
Even then there was something grandiose about their sound, but when the first album Pablo Honey didn't do the quadruple-platinum business, they were gleefully dismissed as one-hit wonders. The Bends (1995) changed all that. With every track a potential single, the album insinuated its way into the collective rock consciousness, not least due to the stand-out tracks, High and Dry and Fake Plastic Trees - both astonishing rock/pop moments. The follow-up OK Computer (1997) is either the "best album ever released" or a "flawed avant-garde masterpiece" depending on what floats your boat, sonically. As "art-rock" as they come, the album was a gigantic creative leap and contains some of their best work (most notably No Surprises) but some people felt that proceedings were getting a bit Syd Barret. No matter: their collective work has ensured that the band remain one of the very few of the last 30 years to conflate massive critical acclaim with massive commercial sales.
Back at the Villa Reale ranch and it's time for the encore: Thom Yorke walks back on stage alone and plays Killer Cars "for the girls with the banner". We look around, and indeed there are some girls holding up a giant "Play Killer Cars" banner. He can't remember the words, laughs, puts down his acoustic guitar and invites the rest of the band out. They do a mini-greatest hits encore - Planet Telex, Bullet Proof and Paranoid Android (a Bohemian Rhapsody for thirtysomethings anybody?), then grin widely, say "Arrivederci" a few times and exit stage left.
Later, they reveal that they have written 26 songs, of which they'll only be using 11 for the new album - "but we do want the other songs to be heard, we might not release them as another album but maybe as a bunch of 12-inch singles," says Ed. Before jumping into their bus and heading off on their jaunt around the Mediterranean, which finishes up with a show in a Roman amphitheatre in Israel, they talk about their "Circus Freakshow" tour, which they'll be bringing to Dublin. "We have this giant tent which we're going to be bringing around with us and playing in every night," he says. "It's about controlling our environment. It'll be good to play somewhere that isn't covered in logos."
Outside a waiting fan inquires about the band's whereabouts: "Are they still here or have they gone somewhere else?". Both, actually.
The new Radiohead album is released on October 2nd. The band plays in its own Big Top Tent at Punchestown Racecourse on October 6th, 7th, and 8th.
