Being that he's qualified this as the first time in a decade that they've performed with anyone other than their own band members, I'm wondering if there are any other musicians that might tempt Phil, Ed or any of the others away from Radiohead in this manner. "Oh...we've had no more invites, I'm afraid," Phil says sadly. That answer gets a big laugh out of me--"You mean that's all it would take to get you on your way, but no one ever invites you? You're like the popular girl that no one has the guts to ask out!" This, in turn, gets Phil laughing. "Still waiting for our date to the prom at the moment!"

Speaking about all of this live performing, I steer the conversation to Radiohead's attitude about the current Amnesiac tour, and ask Phil how it's different from the performances they gave last year for Kid A--for which they hit Europe pretty thoroughly but only teased North America with three shows. "We're playing more material from Amnesiac, of course, but in some ways it's a continuation of what we were doing last year, in the way that we set things up," Phil explains. "We wanted to not to have the sense that we were retracing our steps. We wanted to play in venues which we felt inspired by. So for instance, last night we were playing in this ancient amphitheater in the center of Verona--you can't help but be slightly over-awed by it."

"And also just relaxing the pace of touring as well. We've got a bit more to bring to the performances because we found that, you know, towards the end of OK Computer, I think we were kind of working on auto-pilot, really." Phil is ever the diplomat--anyone who's seen Meeting People is Easy, Grant Gee's documentary of the OK Computer tour, tangibly felt the hell that the band was going through at that time.

Still, I'm diplomatic in response--"Yes, you guys were pretty stressed out by that time." Phil picks up on the euphemistic tone and chuckles. "Right!" He pauses for a moment and adds, "Touring should be the best experience, really--that's what we're aiming to make it at the moment."