REM’s story is a unique one: four guys meet in college, form a band and invent alternative music.
Well, that’s a simplification. But the role of REM in forging an independent music alternative to the mainstream would be hard to overstate. Then, in 1988, after five full-length albums, the group left its small-label home at IRS Records to sign with Warner Brothers.
Sell out? Many said so, and continue to cite pop songs like “Stand” and “Shiny Happy People” as the proof, ignoring the consistent variety and excellence of the past 15 years and seven albums.
But now, we truly may fear the worst; the current tour is in support of In Time: The Best of REM: 1988-2003, due in stores Oct. 28. What’s more, it’s one of those “Greatest Hits” deals that include songs that haven’t been released before, just to get the diehards to shell out for a full-length CD when only a few new songs are present.
Such exploitation of fans would not seem to be REM’s style. It would seem to be payment at last for selling their souls to the corporate devil.
Stranger still is for the group to tour before the album is even released. At the Xcel Energy Centre in St. Paul Sept. 16, the audience was largely lackluster and there were plenty of empty seats.
But with a “new” single on the radio (“Bad Day,” a song they first performed almost 20 years ago) and a Friday night show, their performance at Chicago’s United Center tonight, Oct. 26, should be greeted with greater enthusiasm.
It should be noted that, even with their integrity potentially in question, and even with departed drummer Bill Berry (who left the band amicably after 1996’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi) supplanted by a three-piece backing band, REM still puts on a fun show with a lot of soul.
Michael Stipe, now past 40, still has energy to spare, and still favors his audience with a few random stories and remarks. At the Xcel Center, he spoke of the band’s last rain-soaked Twin Cities appearance, and explained how, while on morphine after his 1995 hernia operation, he concluded that the universe is a hockey puck.
Meanwhile, on stage left, Peter Buck still grows impatient with Stipe’s digressions and slips into his alt-folk Jimmy Page impression. Stage right, Mike Mills does everything without attracting much attention. His bass playing and backup vocals are signature elements of REM’s sound, and his piano made the encore “Nightswimming” a concert highlight.
He also pulled off a fine lead vocal on Reckoning‘s “(Don’t go back to) Rockville” — a song originally sung by Stipe, and on this occasion dedicated to June Carter and Johnny Cash.
REM is playing requests at each show on this tour, as taken online at REMHQ.com. In St. Paul, the group did credit to nearly its entire catalog, though five songs from Automatic for the People dominated the set. Only two songs each from the underrated post-Berry CDs Up and Reveal were included, but Reveal‘s “She Just Wants to Be” and Up‘s “Walk Unafraid” were the climactic moments of the show, songs and performances worthy of an arena setting.
It might make us queasy for REM to be shilling a corporate moneymaker, but seeing the band live will encourage us that the members are still the indie/alternative poster boys. They still bring an air of independence to the otherwise impersonal world of arena concerts.
