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June 16, 2008
Have You Ever Seen the Rain?
On Saturday is was down to Long Island to see R.E.M. again. It was cloudy all day, but I'm an optimist about these sort of things so I was sure that the rain would hold off for the show that night. When we arrived at Jones Beach Amphitheater I was surprised to see that none of the seats were covered, but that wouldn't be a problem since it wasn't going to rain. Well, you can surely see what's coming. It started to sprinkle about halfway through Modest Mouse's set and then the lightning came. I knew that I should start to worry when it apparently struck something around the stage - all of the screens at the back lit up in a spectacular light show. Well, that was all for Modest Mouse's set, and now that it was raining all Biblical-style on us we were herded underneath the stands to keep dry and hopefully avoid electrocution. We quickly realized that one of the downsides of being in the sixth row is that almost everybody else except for you can get under cover before you.
During our rain delay I tried not to think too much about the lightning strike inside RFK Stadium at the Tibetan Freedom Concert almost exactly ten years ago to the day that postponed R.E.M's first show without Bill Berry. I passed the time imagining what songs they'd have to play once they finally got the show started. I knew that "So. Central Rain" would certainly be on the setlist, and I wondered about "Nightswimming," "Harborcoat," "I'll Take the Rain," and after seeing it on a recording from 1985 on TV that morning, joked with my wife that they could play CCR's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" After an hour under the stands, they told us that the show would be starting up again at about 10 p.m.
The band made it out on stage a few minutes after ten, and Michael headed straight for the microphone, looked at Mike and asked "are you ready?" and cued a few notes of a bass line. Indeed they jumped right into an unrehearsed "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" with Mike even singing one of the verses. We were all soaked, but we appreciated that they were having fun with all of us "looking like garbage bags" in the ponchos. After a minute or two of that song, they launched into "So. Central Rain," just to emphasize the point. After that, Michael said that they were going to play "I'll Take the Rain" but that it was "slow, plodding and seven minutes long and nobody really wants to hear that." Instead they hit the proper opening songs of the set and really got the crowd going.
Throughout the set Michael was referencing the rain since it was obviously in the front of all our minds and faces. Near the beginning he asked us if we weren't all really wishing that the US had signed the Kyoto Treaty. They didn't play any songs that night that I hadn't heard them play before (maybe a first for me), but we were treated to "1,000,000" and "It's the End of the World As We Know It" - the first time the latter has been played on this tour. It was our "extra song" treat in the encore. Of course, Johnny Marr was back to join the boys for the last two songs.
After hearing it for the second time in two nights, I realized that they're really ripping through "Orange Crush" on this tour. It looks like it's taken a well-deserved place near the end of the main set (the fast rocking section). Any song that requires a megaphone for its chorus is alright with me.
Finally, to the ornery guy two rows behind me - if you're at the front of an R.E.M. show don't get pissed off at Michael if he has a thing or two to say about Obama and the election. If you don't want to hear about politics, go to a Rod Stewart show. What do you expect to get from R.E.M?
My Flickr pics from the show - much better than Friday night!
R.E.M.'s tour page for this show
#remjones
Posted by jeradlewis at 11:47 PM
June 14, 2008
They've Got Pretty Persuasion
It's a lazy way to write a post, but I'm just going to point out some of the highlights of last night's R.E.M. show in Mansfield, MA, which is one of the most fun shows I've seen them play.
- The highlight, easily, was seeing Johnny Marr play three songs with them during the encore. As he has been doing elsewhere, he came on to play "Fall on Me" and "Man on the Moon," but the crowd convinced the band that they needed to play one more song, so they went with "Pretty Persuasion" (one of the two songs, along with "Harborcoat" that I really wanted to hear last night). Michael Stipe started it off with "Johnny Marr, this is your life!" It was amusing to watch Peter Buck pointing out each chord change to Johnny through the song.
- It's hat time - Mike Mills singing "Rockville." He did that last time they were in Mansfield, too.
- Peter was using his Rickenbacker guitars much more than he has in recent years. He was even using them on songs for which he hasn't ever used them before, such as "What's the Frequency, Kenneth." He used at least three or four different ones, including some solid-body 620s that I've never seen on stage before.
- The first two lines of "Cuyahoga" - "Let's put our heads together, start a new country up" - dedicated to Obama.
- Hearing "Ignoreland," now a staple of this tour after having never been performed since it was recorded in 1992.
- Mike having to give drummer Bill Rieflin cues when to end "Maps and Legends" - they said that they haven't played it in a while.
- I don't think the guitars on "Fall on Me" have ever sounded better than when Johnny Marr is adding his arpeggios against Peter's. It's one of my favorite songs that was made even better.
- Six songs that I've never heard them play before - "Circus Envy," "Maps and Legends," "Pretty Persuasion," "West of the Fields," "Hollow Man," and "Ignoreland."
Check out coverage of the show on the band's tour page.
My pictures of the show on Flickr.
Some of my videos on YouTube.
And it's time to do it all over again tonight at Jones Beach. I hope that those pictures turn out even better, now that I've figured out this camera.
Update: Bradley's Almanac has MP3s of the show posted. Go get 'em.
#remtweet
Posted by jeradlewis at 10:31 AM
June 3, 2008
Bunnies!
Outside the window of my hotel near "London's" Stansted Airport, there's a small field full of bunny rabbits. It makes me think of Watership Down, which I really liked when I read it in college (for pleasure, I didn't take the kinds of courses that made you read real books for grades). If you haven't read it, pick it up for the summer. The book is probably an allegory for something that went right over my head, but I just liked the talking bunnies.
Posted by jeradlewis at 4:47 PM