Glastonbury 2011, Radiohead's appearance at this year's festival was anything but a surprise 2011

One of two bands to occupy the "surprise guests" slot at Glastonbury 2011, Radiohead's appearance at this year's festival was anything but a surprise when Thom Yorke and co took to the stage. The crowd may well have been the biggest ever at Park stage, arriving an hour before the band appeared and filling every corner of the field.

So Radiohead's slot was basically confirmed, but would they play their newest album King of Limbs in its entirety, as rumoured? Not quite.

The band opened with Lotus Flower, the jittery track with which they introduced the public to King of Limbs earlier this year when they released the black-and-white Yorke solo danceathon video. Next up was 15 Steps, a promise, if nothing else, that their audiences' patient wait in the rain wasn't only to hear the latest album. Between newer tracks Morning Mr Magpie and Little By Little there was also All I Need, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi and Reckoner. All from 2007, all from In Rainbows. Vintage Radiohead was far from reach.

So how did the first live performance of King of Limbs go down at Glastonbury? Not brilliantly. Not because the album isn't good, or because Radiohead haven't got the capacity to move away from the "hits" and still own the crowd. But because it was pissing down, and for all its admirably unique qualities, Glastonbury fundamentally attracts a lot of people who have paid a lot of money to be entertained in the freezing mud by bands they probably wont get to see again. And they're mainly desperate to hear Just. So when Radiohead closed the set with Street Spirit and the sodden crowd roared, you couldn't help but feel that both the band and their audience had been cheated out of the gig they deserved.