Radiohead’s Tel Aviv concert. Photo: YouTube screenshot.

JNS.org – Some 50,000 Israelis flocked to Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park on Wednesday night to hear the British rock band Radiohead perform in one of the summer’s most highly anticipated concerts in Israel.

The sold-out show was the longest the band has played in 11 years, and featured performances of 27 songs from Radiohead’s 25-year body of work. The marathon performance was part of a tour for the band’s new album, “A Moon Shaped Pool,” and also celebrated the 20th anniversary of Radiohead’s hit album “OK Computer.”

During the performance, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke directly addressed the anti-Israel BDS movement’s calls for the show to be cancelled, telling the throngs of fans in attendance before the night’s final song, “A lot of stuff was said about this [concert]. In the end, we played some music.”

In the months leading up to the show, former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu spearheaded a BDS petition against the concert. But Yorke, in a Twitter feud with British filmmaker Ken Loach, defended his band’s performance by asserting, “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government. We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu any more than [US President Donald] Trump, but we still play in America.”