Radiohead had a heady summer. Following a club tour of North America, the English quintet toured with R.E.M. in Europe, recorded B-sides for upcoming singles, played European music festivals and opened for Neil Young and Pearl Jam in Denmark.

"It was great," Radiohead's Colin Greenwood said of the Pearl Jam-Young show. "I met Stone Gossard (of Pearl Jam). I had Neil Young standing behind me whilst we were playing, which was a bit unnerving. And they're like fans of our record. "

As for Radiohead's shows with R.E.M. in Berlin, Oslo, Stockholm, Sicily and Tel Aviv, Greenwood said, "it was the best thing we've done in Europe for ages. And R.E.M. is really genial and welcoming and supportive.

"Michael Stipe came up to Thom (Yorke) and said 'Hi, I'm a big fan of your music' and stuff, which was quite unnerving, really. For me personally, the strange thing with them is that they are very approachable people. And then after the conversations you suddenly think about the songs that they didn't play or they weren't talking about that you love as well as the ones that they're playing.

"If someone had told me this time last summer that we'd be touring with R.E.M. we'd probably tell them where to go. The likelihood of it was so small. So we've been very lucky. It's also been a very good introduction to the world of bigger stages and bigger audiences and the difficulties of playing such personal music on such public footing.

"That's something that R.E.M. does very well, especially on songs like 'Let Me In,' which is guitar and voice. That works as well as the louder stuff on 'Green' and 'Document'."

R.E.M. and Radiohead are together once more for an American tour, which will include a Sept. 13 date at the LSU Assembly Center.

Radiohead, Greenwood said from England, is only too happy to cross the Atlantic again.