Mega ultra power doesn’t relax
Other than friend and family stuff, I hadn’t felt like I’d missed any major event in Vancouver (thankfully, the Canucks have only won seven games since I left). Not that things aren’t happening back home, but I haven’t gone, “Damn, I really should have been there for that.” Until this.
On May 23, R.E.M. kicked off their Accelerate tour (avec The National and Modest Mouse) at Deer Lake Park. Can you believe that this was the first time R.E.M. ever played Ignoreland live? I guess the election season got to them. Here are 25 reasons I wish I had been there.
1. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
2. What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
3. Ignoreland
4. Second Guessing
5. Gardening at Night
6. Man Sized Wreath
7. Disturbance at the Heron House
8. Hollowman
9. Accelerate
10. West of the Fields
11. Houston
12. Electrolite
13. Losing My Religion
14. Time After Time (annelise)
15. Let Me In
16. The One I Love
17. Country Feedback
18. Bad Day
19. Walk Unafraid
20. Horse to Water
———
21. Supernatural Superserious
22. Sweetness Follows
23. Get Up
———
24. I’m Gonna DJ
25. Man on the Moon
That is a fucking awesome setlist. Check out the debut (!) performance of Ignoreland below.
Photo courtesy this guy. Stereogum also has some thoughts.
This seems like a good time to mention that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Matthew Fluxblog’s R.E.M. dedicated blog, Pop Songs 08 for ages now. Each post is dedicated to one R.E.M. song and features Matthew’s insights into one of the more enigmatic bands of the past 30 years. The writing is fantastic, as you’d expect, and I’ve come away from nearly every post with a greater appreciation or understanding of the song. And he’s going to get to every R.E.M. song, eventually. It’s an awesome project and I’m almost tempted to do a Radiohead version.
Last July, Matthew wrote this about the then unplayed Ignoreland:
It seems like a waste for them to not give this song a shot in concert — I can imagine a fairly straight adaptation of the album arrangement working out very well as one of the first three songs in a set [...]
Well played, sir.
