I saw REM play here in Australia the other night on the last night of this leg of their world tour. (they go to Europe for the northern summer). It was as Michael said "the first gig of their 25th year" and I thought REM, and Michael in particular, rocked! This was despite the whole band being hungover from going out and celebrating their 25th anniversary the night before (and I'm peeved taht I didn't think that they might be out and about in Adelaide on a Tuesday night - gah!
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The set list was a mix of everything really, stuff like Walk Unafraid, Heron House, etc for the die-hards, all teh big hits for the "fans" and quite a few of the Around the Sun ones, which worked much better live than I had thought. I bought that recently and played it non stop in my car for about 3 weeks and while, yes I thought it was a pile of steaming shite at first, I really like it now. There are very thoughtful songs on there, and I agree Around the sun (track) is a really good song (and I thought it would have made a really good closer ie before the encore (they for some reason went with Losing my Religion instead!
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And Michael is a really confident front man now. He didn't talk all that much before the encore, but then he really opened up about them and their anniversary, they celebrated their sound guy's birthday and while the band did have that hungover state about them, they seemed really appreciative of the crowd's (well the front few rows maybe!) enthusiasm.
As for them being great, not being great, every single interview I ever read with Peter Buck from the very beginning has always had him saying he never wanted to be mega-famous. He went through the publicity, photo etc bullshit cos he has to for his job, but that was never their focus. Hell, Mike getting the Nudie suits is the closest they've ever got to an "image"! With their current contract, they have artistic control over whatever they do. They have tasted real fame with Everybody Hurts etc and my guess is they didn't enjoy the experience and are not interested in repeating it. Michael is the only one who really inhabits that world and my impression from his interviews is that it took him a lot of years to get used to it.
I reckon they are a band that got mega famous DESPITE themselves.