REM – Regular Guy

My Last R.E.M. Show

brian — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 01:02:58 +0000

(I have probably written about this before, but I don’t care)

When I was in my seat (or, more accurately, standing in front of it) at Merriweather Post Pavilion 13 years ago tonight, I had no idea it would be the last time I saw R.E.M. in concert.

The show came at a crazy time for me. I was super unhappy at work, but had significant responsibilities for a huge event happening the day after the concert. I couldn’t turn off work mode until an hour or so before the first opening act took the stage. In the long run, the distraction probably helped.

I spent the show surrounded by strangers like I did for several other shows. My wife didn’t enjoy the band so I never really planned on having a concert buddy. I had bought two tickets and gave one to my niece, but her brother also had an extra ticket so she hung out with them.

I didn’t mind. While I will talk incessantly about the band, I sometimes just like to be alone with their music. I get so into the shows that I don’t need anyone I know around me.

The set lists for this tour – I would obsessively follow what had happened on previous nights – gave me great hope for something special. They had dappled in Sitting Still, Pretty Persuasion and 1,000,0000 among the songs from Accelerate, plus songs that had become concert staples.

My greatest dreams didn’t come true. The songs they dropped in were fine – Little America, Rockville (hilariously featuring Peter fucking it up massively) and Pop Song 89 – but didn’t meet the bar I had set.

So I left the show a little bummed even though I had a great time. It certainly didn’t meet the level of the 2003 show when my friend Dave Lifton and I walked out of the Patriot Center in a daze from that performance and screamed in joy. (James and Caroline were there too, but I distinctly remember Dave’s reaction after the show and forgot to mention them. James shamed me on Twitter so I have added this.)

When they broke up three years later, I definitely looked at the show in a different light.

Instead of missing a song from Murmur, I remember the time I was singing along to the pre-chorus to These Days, and the guy in the seat in front of me turned around and double high-fived me since I knew all the words.

Instead of lamenting that Worksong was the opener for the second or third time I saw them, I marveled at the spring of Worksong/Living Well/Bad Day/Kenneth in the first four songs.

I remember Mike shrugging as Peter apologized for messing up on Rockville – he skipped the pause during the “waste another year” part after the first chorus. The band caught up and made it work.

I remember Peter seemingly telling Johnny Marr the chord changes when he joined the band for Fall on Me and Man on the Moon.

The show is definitely a favorite memory for me. In the end, I got to see R.E.M. live. All the rest is just gravy.

11 June 2008 - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
support: The National, Modest Mouse
set: Finest Worksong / Living Well Is The Best Revenge / Bad Day / What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / Drive / Ignoreland / Man-Sized Wreath / Little America / Hollow Man / Walk Unafraid / Houston / Electrolite / (Don't Go Back To) Rockville / Pop Song 89 / Horse To Water / The One I Love / Driver 8 / Until The Day Is Done / Let Me In / These Days / Orange Crush / I'm Gonna DJ
encore: Supernatural Superserious / Losing My Religion / Mr. Richards / Fall On Me / Man On The Moon
notes: Johnny Marr guests on guitar on 'Fall On Me' & 'Man On The Moon'.

A Fable Worth Re-Telling

brian — Wed, 10 Jun 2015 16:37:52 +0000

Thirty years ago, R.E.M. released Fables of the Reconstruction. The album has taken almost mythic qualities among the band’s canon over time, mainly because no discussion can avoid the problems the band had during the recording process.

In short, they were stuck in England where the weather was horrible and producer Joe Boyd pushed them in ways that they had never been pushed before. While the band has often talked about the difficult time they had making the album, it may have been the most important point of their career. The songs on Fables are either classics or underappreciated gems. After the album and subsequent tour, the band took a different tack and recorded their next album in Indiana with Don Gehman.

That produced Life’s Rich Pageant, my pick for their best-ever work, and they never looked back.

But we’re here to talk about Fables, which starts with “Feeling Gravity’s Pull,” a song which lets you know that it may not be an easy road ahead. That turns into “Maps and Legends,” which turns into the iconic “Drive 8,” making you understand that the guys that threw together Reckoning in just a few weeks had grown up into something special.

Fables has layers upon layers of greatness, the coyness of “Green Grown the Rushes” mixed with the haunting images from “Wendell Gee” and the bouncy goofiness of “Can’t Get There From Here.”

But the song that follows “Driver 8” on the first side of the record is the one that always stays with me. “Life and How to Live It” represents the greatness that R.E.M. started to achieve for many reasons.

The guitar line has the sound of something powerful, but is, in reality, pretty simple. I can even play a rudimentary version of it
The story behind the song is classic Michael Stipe – take a nugget of a weird story and turn it into something complex, yet catchy. He tells some of it on a live version of the song from 1987, but this Flickr page covers it pretty well.
The live version makes you realize the power of the band in concert. They have played it twice at shows I have attended. The first one, in Pittsburgh in 1989, escapes me. The second time came at the beginning of the encore at the Patriot Center in 2003 on their “Best Of” tour. It blew me away. Looking back at old clips, the song has always had this power. The first clip below is from 1985, the second from that 2003 tour (this time in Madrid). Sit back and enjoy.

Happy Birthday, ‘Life’s Rich Pageant’

brian — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 17:42:25 +0000

On this day in 1986, something very special happened. I had no idea at the time.

R.E.M. released Life’s Rich Pageant on this day 28 years ago, the band’s fourth album. I had yet to discover the Athens (Ga.) quartet at the time even though I saw them open for The Police a few years earlier. I paid no attention to them.

Pageant came out right before I went to college, and it didn’t take long for me to discover “Superman,” the hidden 12th track on the album. The song – a cover of the 1960s group The Clique – was a popular party song during my freshman year at college. I didn’t need long to find a used cassette of Pageant from Record and Tape Traders the following summer and begin my obsession with the band.

I don’t know if I would have had the same reaction if I hadn’t immersed myself in this album from the beginning. Reckoning may have done the same thing, but that’s about it at that point. I love Murmur and think Fables is underrated, but my favorite songs come from Pageant. I remember the moment at the final R.E.M. show I saw in 2008 when the guy in front of me turned around and high fived me because I knew every word to the “I had a hat …” segment of “These Days.”

Yeah, I can be that guy at an R.E.M. show.

I went full-long into the band when I saw them play on the Green tour in 1989, the first album I bought right after it came out. I don’t recall a ton from that show in Cleveland, but I remember how mesmerized I was at their performance of “I Believe.” They always took it up a notch live. So, I’m celebrating the birthday of Pageant with one of my favorite songs from the album.

An R.E.M. Memory

brian — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:53:04 +0000

Four years ago today, I faced one of the most important professional days in my life. I had to prepare for an event on June 12 which had to go perfectly. All the stress of that reality, however, gave way to something else.

I had tickets to see R.E.M. the night before my big day. Little did I know it, but this would be the last time I would see my favorite band perform live.

I feel conflicted about all of this. After all, I could have not gone to the show because of my work stress. If I had missed their last tour, I would not have forgiven myself.

But the show I did see did not meet my expectations. I know that sounds selfish, but I have seen the band enough and follow their tour exploits that I can’t help it.

The folks the night before got “Harborcoat” where I got “Finest Worksong.” My encore went right from “Fall on Me” into “Man on the Moon.” The nights bookending my show added “Pretty Persuasion” or “Sitting Still” between those.

But the further away from the show I get, the less it bothers me. I got “Little America” and “Driver 8.” I got to see Peter Buck screw up “Rockville” (in the video below). And I got possibly my favorite R.E.M. concert moment ever.

Near the end of the main set, they ripped into “These Days.” I love the song, especially live. As Stipe headed into the first chorus, he sang words I worked really hard to decipher over the years.

I had a hat, and it sunk, reached down, yanked it up, slapped it on my head*

I sang it along with him as loud as I could. As I finished the line, the guy in front of me turned around and had the biggest smile on his face. he gave me a big double high-five which clearly indicated our membership in the club of people so obsessed with this band that we’re impressed when someone else knows an obtuse lyric.

I may not have heard “1,000,000” like the people the night before me, but I have this going for me. Which is nice.

* – The album lyric is I had a hat, put it down and it sunk, reached down, yanked it up, slapped it on my head but Michael Stipe has left out the “put it down” part for a while now.

ITEOTWAWKI: Garbage Time

brian — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 15:04:17 +0000

I finally broke down and bought the (supposed) final album from R.E.M. I say supposed because Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982–2011 may be the last project the band works on together in the studio, but I really doubt the business entity that is R.E.M. will never release anything ever again.

I’ve blogged before about Peter Buck’s fascination with bootlegs and demo tapes – a passion not shared by Michael Stipe – and think nostalgia and money will eventually coax some more live shows or hidden studio offerings out into the marketplace. At least I hope so.

But just in case they never commit anything to vinyl or CD or MP3 again, I bought Part Lies recently. To be honest, I had gone to Amazon to buy something else and really wanted to get free shipping so I added the CD somewhat reluctantly. I will probably reference the liner notes more than I play the discs. Each song has some explanation from the band with each member weighing in on whichever songs they felt like.

Some of the stories shed no new light, but others gave those nuggets of minutiae that I love. This piece from Time checks in on each song and shows why the liner notes rock as the reviewer tracks immodest statements from Stipe within the notes. Not only that, but he does pull the curtain back on a few song inspirations/meanings. I had no idea they really considered not putting “Radio Free Europe” on Murmur. Since the song had helped catapult them to success as a single, they didn’t know if they wanted to release it again. But they did and the differences between the original (fast) version and the one most people have heard from the album indicate, to me at least, the ability the quartet had even in their earliest days.

I also enjoyed the nuggets, mostly from Buck, about who wrote what song. The quick and easy description of how he and Bill Berry put together “Driver 8” makes me like the great song even more somehow.

On the downside, they threw three new songs on the end of the album. I have heard (and was unimpressed by) “We All Go Back Where We Belong” when it was first released and doubt I will intentionally hear it again. I haven’t heard the other two songs and feel no compulsion to ever do so. I’d rather hear yet another live version of “Rockville” or “Gardening at Night” so I hope Buck is getting antsy about breaking open the vault.

ITEOTWAWKI: Not Feeling It

brian — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:42:20 +0000

In a couple of weeks, R.E.M. will release what it calls a definitive retrospective on their 31-year career, “Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982-2011.” The band’s website has started a number of initiatives to promote the release of the 40-song collection. They have a “Song of the Week” with various performances of a signature tune, including covers. They have videos for “We All Go Back To Where We Belong,” one of the new songs which will be released. They are pulling out all the stops.

I don’t really care very much. I mean, I will buy the album. Not right away, but I will get it because the 20-something versions of Sitting Still I currently have on my computer just won’t cut it. I know I already have the one which will appear in the collection, but this just means it might show up more often in Shuffle Play.

But on the whole, meh. I’m not that bummed that they broke up, but I wish they had waited a while before releasing such a blatant money-grab. To be honest, the only real anticipation I have is for the liner notes which hopefully will include some more cool stories to clutter my geeky brain.

ITEOTWAWKI: Getting There from Here

brian — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:59:30 +0000

Obviously, I have thought way too much about the R.E.M. breakup this week. A few friends contacted me to say that I came to mind when they heard the news, which is touching, but I’m not distraught or anything. Since most albums in the past 10-15 years have been hit or miss, I’m not that bothered they won’t be returning to the studio. I’m more disappointed that I have probably seen them live for the last time – and that show wasn’t as great as I had hoped.

Anyway, the news has since come out that the band came to the decision while working on (another) greatest hits collection, titled “Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage: 1982-2011” and scheduled for a November 15 release. Unlike the last two greatest hits albums, this will span the band’s whole career instead of splitting the songs between the I.R.S. era and the Warner brothers era. The album will reportedly have some stuff they finished since “Collapse Into Now” came out.

That makes me wonder if they really did start working on something else, realized they didn’t have what it took to put a whole album together (probably based on an accelerated timeline from the record company) and decided to just end things. The theory of record label politics playing a role in the end has already been floated by murmurs.com founder Ethan Kaplan, who also used to work at Warners and begs the question: was this dissolution more contractual than creative?

I don’t think they will re-form or anything, but I wonder if they have something up their sleeve. Peter Buck admitted a couple of years ago that “(a)s far back as 1982 we have live 16- and 24-track tapes, and we have a bunch of shows that sound pretty cool.” He admitted there wouldn’t be a treasure trove of live shows coming out, but as they worked on what would accompany the Reckoning re-issue a couple of years ago, he said he wished the band could share their early history with their fans.

We’re already sifting through stuff from 1984, ’85, and there are also filmed elements… We’ve discussed putting all that stuff up on the web site, ’cos we’ve got copies of every performance that was ever filmed, and there’s a lot of ’em. I’d love to get all that stuff out there. The live thing is such an important element of who we were, and if you only know us from the records you’re missing out on more than half of what we were about. I’m sure the record company would have a nervous breakdown if they heard me talking like this, but it’s not the earning money thing that concerns me as much as the band entering history in as representative a way as possible. Come on, let’s see the weird Dutch TV performances with us lip-synching in make-up!

But when a band like Weezer (and I am sure others) makes CDs and digital downloads of their shows available through their own site, I wonder if we might see something like this from R.E.M. in the future. Commissioning the mastering and release of shows through REMHQ.com sounds like a lot less work than doing what a record company tells you to do and would make the die-hard fans happy. I’m sure there are all kinds of legal reasons that might make this dream of mine impossible, but it’s at least worth consideration.

If they do it, I think they should start with the tape of their first concert in April 1980 which I like to think is hidden somewhere in Peter Buck’s collection of bootlegs. If I’m dreaming, why not dream big, right?

R.E.M. Calls It Quits

brian — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:56:33 +0000

I remember the first time I heard R.E.M. They opened for The Police in August 1983, and the thing I remember most is that I don’t remember anything. My siblings told me opening acts sucked and I should not pay attention. I remember they were incredibly manic on stage and Michael Stipe introduced them as The Beatles. The crowd booed, and it went downhill from there.

Half a decade later, I had started a love affair with the band which has not really changed my life, but entertained and informed me. I don’t really know how it happened, but I became pretty obsessed with every detail of the band’s history. I have listened to way too many bootlegs, learned way too many pieces of minutiae and downloaded way too many bootlegs. Even though I realize the limitations of their output, particularly since drummer Bill Berry left the band more than a decade ago.

Now, they have called it quits, according to a post on the band’s official website. When the Twitter post from their account popped up, I prayed they were just teasing a song named “Calling It Quits” or something like that. No such luck.

If I spent the next few hundred words pouring out what this band meant to me, I’d turn into one of those overwrought people who place way too much emphasis on what a performer means to them. Let’s just say that I can connect many important parts of my life to R.E.M. songs, and I’m grateful for that. I saw them in concert seven times after that 1983 performance and soaked up every memory I could. The final time was in 2008 when they played at Merriweather Post Pavilion. This was the last live song I saw R.E.M. perform.

Thanks, guys.

ITEOTWAWKI: Modern Day Prophet

brian — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:53:08 +0000

When the earthquake hit the East Cost on Tuesday, I made a joke in reference to the lyrics to “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Now that a hurricane is bearing down on the East Coast, I’m beginning to think that Michael Stipe’s word play is more than a coincidence.

He nailed the earthquake and hurricane. He’s railing about the influence of right-wing politicians and activists. He’s even foreseen recent decisions by some colleges to crack down on fraternities and drinking.* I went to a birthday party last week where there was cheesecake. So I’m going to hunker down, light a candle (maybe a votive), get some jelly beans and keep my eye peeled for four guys whose initials are all L.B. If I dream of knives, I know the end is coming. You know what? I’ll be fine if Michael is the prophet we’ve been waiting for.

* – I discovered recently that part of the second verse is usually transcribed as “Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no fear cavalier.” but in reality is “Watch O’Neil crush rush, uh-oh, this means no beer, Cavalier” in reference to former University of Virginia (the Cavaliers) President Robert O’Neil instituting a ban of alcohol on campus (including fraternity rush). Sadly, I have listened carefully to a bunch of live versions and am pretty certain that’s the correct lyric. R.E.M. played at UVA in the midst of this situation, a year before they recorded “Document.”

ITEOTWAWKI: Wait Almost Over

brian — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:35:02 +0000

I didn’t realize until now that I hadn’t posted at all about the upcoming re-release of “Lifes Rich Pageant.” The new version comes out on July 12 with a bonus disc of demos from March 1986. The “Athens Demos” are previously unreleased, but let’s hope they are also previously unheard, just like the demos from the Fables re-release last year.

R.E.M. has allowed so much stuff to reach fans via bootleg, I am always skeptical that I will pop in one of these bonus discs and find something I had never heard before. They managed to surprise me last year so I will withhold judgment now.

I really liked seeing this release highlighted in Entertainment Weekly” this week. They noted that the demos featured a version of “Wait,” a savvy move by the magazine. This song has banged around bootlegs for years with only one studio version I know of ever existing. That one was pretty rough so I hope this is a more polished mix.

“Wait” ranks as one of those moments I kind of wish the band had embraced earlier. When they played the song live, it had an infectious beat with Michael Stipe’s sister Cindy and Magnapop singer Linda Hopper singing background vocals in this version, which rounds out a manic second set of a 1981 show at Tyrone’s in Athens. This is the fun side of R.E.M. which needs more exposure. Hopefully they captured that in these demos.