Music Festival News

Radiohead will broadcast a performance of their new album In Rainbows on TV and the internet on New Year’s Eve.

“This is a wee celebration of the release of the physical manifestation of In Rainbows,” he wrote on the band’s site.

In Rainbows is released on CD and vinyl on 31 December in the UK and 1 January in the US, after being put online by the band in October.

The English rock band Radiohead, which offered its latest CD In Rainbows online last month for whatever downloaders were willing to pay, will perform music from the album on New Year’s Eve on cable channel Current TV and the website Current.com, Billboard magazine reported Wednesday. The performance will initially be broadcast at midnight and then be repeated three times on New Year’s Day. The CD is also due to go on sale on New Year’s day, with industry watchers looking to see whether the cable TV and Internet exposure has helped or cannibalized store sales.

The band will be performing a full set of ‘In Rainbows’ on their website at midnight GMT, and it will also be aired a little later on Al Gore’s Current TV station and website.

Frontman Thom Yorke explained: “This is a wee celebration of the release of the physical manifestation of ‘In Rainbows’,” the album Radiohead are finally releasing on all formats on December 31st.

The gig, we understand, has been recorded at their Oxford studio, and consists of a full airing of their new album as well as other bits of their back catalogue.

Radiohead will perform its new album, “In Rainbows,” in its entirety during a pre-taped, hour-long set that will premiere New Year’s Eve on TV and the Internet.

The event will air on Current TV and Current.com starting 12 a.m. ET (5 a.m. British time) on December 31, and will repeat three times throughout the next day.

Radiohead hosted one such Webcast in early November, during which the band played new material as well as such covers as the Smiths’ “The Headmaster Ritual,” Bjork’s “Unravel” and New Order’s “Ceremony.”

The “In Rainbows” CD will go on sale in stores next week. It was first made available a few months ago, when fans could download it from the Web for a price of their own choosing.

The pre-recorded set will go out on US and UK cable and satellite channel Current TV, and online on Current.com and Radiohead.tv.

Singer Thom Yorke said it would begin on the band’s website at midnight GMT, while the Current site said it would be webcast there from midnight EST.

Yorke said it would include them playing “some songs and other bits”.