I didn’t intend to go a whole week between posts. Really. I have lots of stuff to write about, but just never took the time. I finished a book this week and can opine on many other topics, but this is Friday so I feel obligated to post about the latest R.E.M. news which has obsessed me, this time in video form.<\/p>\n
Before that, some thoughts on the tribute show<\/a>. I hope sometime this weekend to track down a recording of the Carnegie Hall show. I know it is out there, but it is only on DIME<\/a> and you pretty much have to dedicate your life to waiting for an opening on there if you want to get any unreleased material.<\/p>\n I remember the days when bootleggers actually wanted people to hear the things they taped instead of hiding behind hard-to-join sharing services and whining if you wanted to turn them into MP3s for your own use. That’s a different blog for a different day.<\/p>\n I can’t wait until I can finally join and download the show. The set list looked awesome, but I wonder if Peter wanted to smack Kimya Dawson upside the head for her performance.<\/p>\n And in what may have been the strangest set Carnegie has seen in its storied lifetime, Kimya Dawson took on “World Leader Pretend” with a glockenspiel player and team of performance artists\u00a0behind her dressed as\u00a0dragons, cops and furballs, all of whom appeared like characters from a Maurice Sendak storybook stumbling into a Rockette’s number. Dawson’s piece ended with all seven troupe members crowded together to cycle through the song’s fitting refrain: “I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now to the videos prior to the tribute. True to the band’s style, the selections go from the ridiculous<\/p>\n