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It's a night just like tonight: I'm working late at the Flagpole
office, trying to make my first real deadline, subbing for Ballard
while he's out bashin' skins with the Rock*A*Teens. So I'm typing
my heart out in the music office in the basement when I hear
someone moving around upstairs. Out of fear that we we're getting
robbed, curiosity as to who else might be here after 9 p.m., or some
kind of extra-sensory perception, I go upstairs to investigate. When
I get there, a guy with dark, curly hair and big plastic-rimmed
glassy is looking around. "Is there anyone upstairs?" he asks me.
“No, man, it's just me. I've been downstairs, writing."
“Well, would you want to go see R.E.M. at the Georgia Theatre at
i zr
“Tonight?!?!?" Chemicals designed to propel me into some sort
of hunting scenario start pumping into my brain.
“Yeah. How many passes do you think you can get rid of?" he
said.
“Get rid of?!" I think to myself.
“Urn...urn..." At this point I'm already frenetic. I'm already short
of breath. He leads me to a van outside, reaches into the passenger
side and hands me a fistful of plain
looking pink armbands with a cheap black 5
stamp on them. These are tickets to the 3
first full-on R.E.M. show ir Athens since 5
1993? Shouldn't they have holograms on o
them? Shouldn't they be made of some
precious metal? Shouldn't they be kind of ^
hot to the touch, glowing, liable to melt £
in my hand, evaporate? *
Then he drives off.
So I start wandenng around downtown,
calling people on my cell phone. The
towers are overloaded once the word gets
out—there are a lot of us wandenng
around, whispering excitedly into cellular
devices, looking at each other knowingly.
I'm out-of-breath, incoherent. I only have
a few passes, and I don't know how to
give them away.
Ultimately, the problem kmda solves
itself: a couple of the guys that I give
passes to proceed to smuggle IS or 20
other people into the show, a move that
I'm sure a 22-year-otd Peter Buck wouldn't
have missed being a part of
So I walk into the Georgia Theatre.
Scott McCaughey and what I assume was
his band the Minus 5 {actually, The
Pcssibibtres] are bangm out upbeat pop
songs. I can t pay attention to them,
though. The place is comfortably full, but
not packed at all. My friends and I walk up
to the front without any trouble, exchanging astonished, congratu
latory smiles with everyone around us. Maybe this is what Heaven
might be like, if there were such a thing: a mass of people standing
around kind of smirking in pleasant surprise at their own great for
tune at having been able to gain admittance to a place that no one
believed could exist, smiling and pointing and mouthing the words.
“Holy shit! You got in, too!"
I look around some more.
It strikes me that this was the perfect way for the band to
assemble an audience for a performance like this. Because they, in
their own words, “suckerfished onto” the screening of Jim McKay's
new film Our Song, the band could expect an audience of what I'd
call the tnooghtfut R.E.M. fans: folks who know and care what the
lyncs are and what they mean, people who share the band's tastes.
So the crowd was civilized, respectful.
The Possibilities finish their set and the roadies start sound
checking R.E.M s equipment. My friends, more knowledgeable than
I, are debating which song the band will start with.
I put a hand on a shoulder of each of the guys standing with
me. and. as if !*d never been a jaded indie rock asshole, proceed to
say, "I can't believe we re fuckin here! Holy shit!"
The band comes out. and they re as excited as we are. It's not
just that wv haven't seen them play a show like this since 93—they
probably haven't played a show like this in as long
They start with "Imitation of life " Before that, though. Michael
says. "We rt R E M and this is what we do." Of course, that's not
true. What they do these days is write lush studio records and play
arena shows, which is fine. Tonight they're “getting back to the
roots," playing a club, however large, without a lightshow, without a
perfect sound system.
Michael is talkative, and his mood isn't always obvious.
Sometimes he is playful and coy, covering his face and apologizing
for his vocals, and other times it seems like his sensibilities are
being offended. One guy in the front row is grabbing and hoarding
Michael's lyric sheets as the singer discards them. Michael wants
him to share. "I'm going to tell you something and you need to
remember this: pigs get fed; hogs get slaughtered."
Peter's getting a taste of the old days: the feed back freak outs
come fast and furious. Solos are sloppy. Kicks and twirls are in abun
dance.
Mike Mills is the same way he always is, only more so: he's a
nerd that gets to play in one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
He smiles and jumps with Scott McCaughey, and it's like “Hey, I
can't believe we're here!"
Ultimately the joy of the night is in the fact that I help people
get in, that we could all kind of be here symbolically. The show
itself is not extraordinary. They play only a handful of unexpected
songs—among them a slightly different version of “Let Me In," the
band's tribute to Kurt Cobain, which Stipe introduces with a poem.
“I had to laugh not to cry," he says over and over. The obscure song
“Ghost Rider" (originally by the band Suicide) is a highlight, a
glimpse into the past. Honestly what I want is a set straight out of
'82 or '83, chockfull of punk oddities, drunken, sloppy, ugly.
What I get is something more mature, safe, and comfortable. I'm
not complaining. If there is a Heaven and I get in, I don't guess
there'll be much drunken, sloppy, ugly punk rock there, either. I'm
gonna keep my fingers crossed and hope maybe that guy with the
glasses comes around one more time with another set of impossible
passes. And I hope I can sneak in all my fnends.
Brandon Butler
7 5mph from
Atlanta
last Tuesday night I was stopped at a red tight in East Atlanta,
hobos creeping around the sidewalks tike zombies from the video
game "Resident Evil," when my cell phone beeped. It was my old
roommate. In an excited voice he was clearly struggling to control
he said, “Vaughn Come to Athens, now. R.E.M is going to play at
the Georgia Theater m an hour. This is not a dnll "
I didn’t wait for an explanation My '92 Ford Thunderbird of Steel
went from zero to IS in about four seconds, leaving the still red
light (and hobos) in the dust. I was outside 1-285 before I had time
to think twice.
Of course, this isn't the first time this has happened. Being an
R.E.M. fan isn't always easy. I get calls about "surprise R.E.M.
shows" at least once a month, and I've sat through countless
noodle-rock shows, surrounded by a hundred noodle-rockers and half
a dozen other R.E.M. fans who got the same “tip." You can't take
chances, though, because every once in a while, it pays off. Last
Tuesday, it did.
The fact that the full band played a 15-song set at the Georgia
Theatre on a random Tuesday night is such a remarkable, once in a
decade event these days, that a description of the show itself is
almost an afterthought. Still, it's definitely worth discussing,
because it was exceptional, and this being a live review, I should
probably start talking about it.
All three of them (plus the usual backup) seemed to have more
unabashed fun on stage than at any “official" live appearance in
recent memory. The last time they all stood on stage at the Georgia
Theatre, it was to film the "Shiny Happy People" video. Things
worked out much better this time.
Mike Mills jumped around on stage with the same dopey, “I can't
believe this is happening!" grin on his face that most people in the
audience wore. Michael was chatty, comfortable, and, despite sev
eral warnings to the contrary, had no trouble hitting the notes. (On
“Imitation of Life," the opening number, he sounded confident and
smooth, unlike the shaky rendition on David Letterman several
months ago.) Even Peter, who looked
bored out of his mind at the Chastain
shows in Atlanta two years ago, seemed to
be having a blast.
They played five songs from Reveal.
which is quite possibly their best album to
date, and the older songs they pulled out
were all interesting, less than obvious
choices (“So Fast, So Numb," “Let Me In").
With the exception of "I've Been High,"
the set was composed mostly of more up
tempo numbers (“Great Beyond," "Walk
Unafraid"), though they held back on
some of their more arena-rock anthems (if
one can call an R.E.M. song an anthem)
like "Kenneth," “Finest Worksong," or "The
One I Love." All in all, it was the perfect
balance for the night and the venue, and
who wouldn't rather hear “Cuyohoga" over
“Crush with Eyeliner," anyway? Not that
“Pop Song 89“ wouldn't have been nice,
but this was not an evening for com
plaints. The pre-encore set ended with
• “Man on the Moon," which has slowly
evolved in the 10 years (!!) since its
release into one of tMr best live songs,
ever.
As the snow progressed, the crowd con
tinued to grow. Cell phone-devised
schemes were being hastily hatched all
over the club to get friends in, and many
were successful. The wristband passes
could be snapped on and off, and I saw kids sliding them into their
pockets and slipping them back out the door to their desperate,
pouty-faced fnends on the sidewalk. I know of one wristband in par
ticular that got at least 15 people in the door. I. of course, had
nothing to do with this.
Despite the show's secrecy, the crowd was pretty diverse and full
of Athens notables ranging from Elf Power to County Commissioner
John Barrow, standing cool as school off to the side in a full suit
and tie.
Before the show had even begun, people everywhere were
asking, “so how did you find out?" and sharing their own stories of
being in the nght place at just the right time.
Beyond the Lumpkin Street sidewalk, though, most of Athens
was still pretty oblivious. I was told of a bartender who walked to
The Gnll around 12:30 and rolled his eyes at the fact that "some
Georgia Theatre band is covering 'It's the End of the World,' isn't
there a law against that tn this town?" Walking around town after it
was over, people looked at my wristband and asked, “Who'd you go
see?" I replied. "I saw the secret R.E.M. show at the Georgia
Theatre." They laughed. So did I. They'd find out in the paper soon
enough.
R.E.M still stands as the best thing to come out of Athens since
“The Tree That Owns Itself." To top it all off, it was my 23rd
birthday. I just hope they play here again before 2008.
Vaughn Starling
OCTOBER 24, 2001 • FLAGPOLE COM 13