Thank You Santa: Radiohead Bonnaroo Soundboard Surfaces

Radiohead’s headlining set at Bonnaroo 2006 reached legendary status soon after the band left the stage. Front man Thom Yorke thought so much of his group’s performance at the Manchester, Tenn. festival that shortly after he told BBC 6 Music that he considered it “my favourite gig for years and years and years.” He went on to say that it was filmed for a video release that would “come out eventually.” Six later we’re still waiting for the Radiohead Bonnaroo ’06 DVD/Blu-Ray, but now we get to hear the soundboard recording of the 28-song set.

A website called RadioheadBonnaroo.com went live a while ago and features links to a two-track master from the soundboard. It was only recently that Radiohead fans came across the site and in the past few days the recording has started to spread. Here’s the story of the recording…

It’s hard to believe this was over 5 years ago, but a friend of mine was running sound that night. He snagged the 2-track master from the board and handed the raw WAV over to me. I felt like I scored the mix of a lifetime. I’ve spent twenty years behind mixing consoles and mastering is one of my fortes, so I couldn’t wait to pull the best out of this one.

After two months of wrangling, I finally came up with a mix that I loved. Everything is crystal clear. I have heard every “official” Radiohead live release and none of them sound this clear. After 5 years of keeping this to myself, I had a talk with my friend — and he gave me to the OK to go ahead and release this to the public on the 5th anniversary of this awesome show. Of course, they could tell me to take it down any moment, so I would download the files below as soon as possible.

The recording sounds fantastic and is worthy of the performance. Head over to RadioheadBonnaroo ASAP and grab this crystal clear recording of a historic set both for the band and the festival.

UPDATE: FLAC files of this super-crispy recording of Radiohead’s Bonnaroo ’06 set are now available through Dime A Dozen (Registration Required). [Hat Tip – @funkitblog]

Related Content

9 Responses

  1. This was one of the greatest musical performances I’ve seen in my entire life. I’ve been waiting since June of ’06 for something like this to appear.

  2. Thanks Scott, I was up front and close for this one and this blows away the Audience recording I have!
    TY Santa indeed!!!

  3. Hey guys, this is Paul Phipps, I did the mastering for this awesome show. The masters were finalized in WAV file and I converted them to MP3 for the web. If you want the WAV files send an email to semzomultimedia (at) gmail.com and I will send you a private link from my server (please no spam). It’s worth it — the WAV files sound a million times better. Thanks for listening!

  4. Holy shit, thanks Paul!! WAVs make the difference, anyone who DL’ed the mp3s should ditch those and grab the lossless. Trust me, your ears will thank you.
    Thanks again!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter