Buy R.E.M. - R.E.M. Live 2CD
If there is any braying demand for a full-fledged ‘official’ R.E.M. live album - after years of relegating such material to B-sides, compilations and concert videos/DVDs - then it probably isn’t for one culling performances from the current decade. A ragged pre-Murmur set would certainly be historically intriguing, shows taped between 1985’s Fables of The Reconstruction and 1986’s Lifes Rich Pageant could potentially hold some invigorating moments, decent companion CDs to the self-descriptively titled 1990 flick Tourfilm and the band’s first MTV Unplugged session would undoubtedly be welcomed too - but surely there’s been no raging lust for post-Bill Berry concert recordings from 2005?
Was this collection merely conceived by Warners to recoup the huge advance for renewing the group’s contract around 1996’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi? Whilst conceding to label pressures is certainly something Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe might never openly admit to, they may one day begrudgingly confess to this being an attempt to reconnect with their ‘organic’ creative principles, that have all but been eviscerated by the ponderous and over-polished displeasures of 2001’s Reveal and 2004’s Around The Sun, especially given that tracks from the latter LP seem so deliberately and desperately pushed to the fore. Whereas the financial success of a possible commercial compromise is hard to judge this side of the Christmas sales figures, attempts to rejuvenate music seen as past the ‘listen-by-date’ are easier to assess.
It’s certainly fair to say that the songs picked from the otherwise unloved Around The Sun do sound a lot more muscular and rawer than their over-cooked studio incarnations. “Boy In The Well” picks-up a darker gravitas not dissimilar to “Undertow” from the underrated New Adventures. The strangely-endearing “Electron Blue” and the lush “Leaving New York” reposition themselves to be like the better cuts on 1998’s meandering Up. The Bush-baiting “Final Straw” finally has its poignant yet angry lyric matched properly, with an insistent early-Dylan semi-acoustic groove. Sadly, the equally politicised “I Wanted To Be Wrong” is still flatly-rendered with syrupy synths and the forgettable “Ascent of Man” flops around again in its own tediousness.
Beyond brave efforts to rehabilitate Around The Sun, the augmented-trio also make detours into lesser-aired back catalogue entries, with largely commendable results. “I Took Your Name” and “Walk Unafraid” are resuscitated with reassuringly powerful menace. The vintage eco-hymn “Cuyahoga” comes with renewed zeitgeist-relevant gusto, as does the prowling “Orange Crush” and the sublime “Drive”. A couple of the more obscure flashbacks stumble a little though, with “So Fast, So Numb” tossed-off somewhat sarcastically and “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” being maimed with a corny Mills lead-vocal. However, the previously unreleased glam-pop-racket of “I’m Gonna DJ” does help to liven-up the encore, as a sort-of-sequel to the Monster outtake and onetime tour favourite “Revolution”.
And then there’s the bonafide ‘hits’ of course. It’s hard not to be swept-up in the euphoric delivery of “Bad Day”, “Imitation of Life”, “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”, “The Great Beyond” and “The One I Love” but it’s a little tougher to sustain such deep affection for “Losing My Religion”, “Everybody Hurts” and “Man On The Moon” due to their over-played familiarity and Stipe’s increasingly-coarse larynx.
Whilst the 2 audio CDs here will get (and generally deserve) a good few spins, the accompanying DVD (featuring the exact same content) is really more for the truly devoted fan, who can get past the slightly pretentious camera work, the Zoo TV-aping on-stage visuals and Stipe’s joke-worn-thin face-paint. If you still need a truly innovative reel of R.E.M. show footage, then the DVD reissue of Tourfilm is still the place to go. Taken as a whole package though, R.E.M. Live is a flawed but respectable enough addition to the canon of three men who can still conjure up a bit of magic, albeit in spite of themselves.
Buy R.E.M. - R.E.M. Live 2CD
01 I Took Your Name
02 So Fast, So Numb
03 Boy In the Well
04 Cuyahoga
05 Everybody Hurts
06 Electron Blue
07 Bad Day
08 The Ascent Of Man
09 The Great Beyond
10 Leaving New York
11 Orange Crush
12 I Wanted To Be Wrong
13 Final Straw
14 Imitation Of Life
15 The One I Love
16 Walk Unafraid
17 Losing My Religion
18 What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
19 Drive
20 (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
21 I'm Gonna DJ
22 Man On the Moon
R.E.M. - R.E.M. Live 2CD
