While on the home stretch of The Bends Tour, Radiohead chose a gig in Mansfield, Massachusetts as where they would live debut "Karma Police" and "Climbing Up The Walls."

They also performed "Paranoid Android" with different lyrics.

All three songs would be center to their third album, the Grammy-winning OK Computer, which would drop the following year.

That night about 45 minutes from Boston, the Brits played just a dozen songs as they were opening for Alanis Morrisette who was on her Can't Not Tour.

Alanis, by the way, finished her set with "Your House" about a woman who goes into a man's house, takes off her clothes, puts on his robe, reads a love letter from a different woman, cries in his shower, and leaves behind salt in his bed.

Creepy.

Far creepier than "Creep" which Radiohead had played earlier that night.

So why did they choose the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts (now called the Xfinity Center) to debut these songs?

Before "Karma Police," frontman Thom Yorke introduced themselves and gave us a hint.

"Hi, we're called Radiohead," he said while changing from an electric to an acoustic guitar.

"This is one of the new songs we're playing. The reason we're playing them is because we have to make an album soon and we need the rehearsals," he said.

My guess is not so much they needed to practice the songs as much as they wanted to have a good recording of what it sounded like live.

Be it the soundboard or recording equipment that's unique to Great Woods, but the venue has a laundry list of artists who have either filmed DVDs there or recorded songs for live albums.

The Allman Brothers Live at Great Woods 1992 DVD, Depeche Mode recorded songs for 2009's Recording the Universe, a song from Phish's A Live One, Rush's performance of "2112" from 1997 ended up on Different Stages, and the entirety of disc three of The Queen is Dead box set "Live in Boston" were all recorded on that stage.

For an outdoor venue, how good does Morrissey sound in that recording?

"Paranoid Android" would turn out to be the group's second-most-performed song just behind "Street Spirit" which had a two-year jump since it was from The Bends.

Lately Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood and Yorke have been playing in a side project called The Smile whose second album, Wall of Eyes, came out at the beginning of the year.

Last month Greenwood was hospitalized due to a serious infection. He was released and is recovering but The Smile's tour which was scheduled to start tonight was canceled.

Thom, though, has a rare mini-solo tour lined up for this fall. From the last week of October through November, the singer will perform in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Japan.

Get your tickets on the Waste website.