Thom Yorke, photo by Bahram Foroughi

Last night, Flea took his Honora tour abroad for a show in London. The Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist’s world tour is already a star-studded affair, with backing from a band of pioneering instrumentalists from Los Angeles’ jazz and experimental scenes like Josh Johnson, Jeff Parker and Deantoni Parks, but their performance at the Camden Town venue showed extra prestige with a surprise sit-in from Thom Yorke. 

Yorke teamed up with Flea for a guest spot on Honora, lending his sensitive tenor to a curious and alert feature on the Second single, “Traffic Lights.” On Tuesday, after Flea set off the show with his sedate non-album track “Good Night Darius,” the Atoms for Peace bandmates reunited to give their collaboration a proper live debut at the top of the program. When Flea and his supergroup had worked through a selection of six further originals and their covers of Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman,” Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” and Frank Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You,” Yorke returned to close the main portion of the performance by leading a live debut of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 single “Got to Give It Up” on electric guitar. Earlier in the show, the Bad Seeds and Dirty Three multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis stepped up to bring strings to Flea’s original “Frailed.”

On Honora, Flea navigates kinetic jazz atmospheres to reactivate his love of the trumpet. Beyond his lead horn, lithe, fiery, wistful and full-bodied, he composed every song (save for the aforementioned covers), arranged the album and plays bass throughout. The elite team alongside him includes producer and saxophonist Johnson, Tortoise guitarist Parker, drummer Parks, saxophonist Rickey Washington (Kamasi’s father), trombonist Vikram Devasthali, bassist Anna Butterss and vocalist Chris Warren, plus Nick Cave, Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott and his Atoms for Peace bandmates Mauro Refosco and Yorke.

“They were all the most genuinely supportive people, moving me deeply and daily with their generous spirits,” Flea reflected on the collaborative process. “Sitting in a room and playing the music with them made me feel like I was on drugs. I was buzzing, tripping and floating around the studio. I love them, they truly gave of themselves. I bow all the way down.”

Watch Yorke’s sit-in below. Read a full review of Honora here.