We are big R.E.M. fans here at ENS and have been every since we can remember hearing the first notes of Murmur years ago. Unlike most bands their age, we are still interested in what the boys are doing and really enjoyed their 2008 Accelerate.
If you recall, the band released a special edition of that album, with a documentary filmed by Vincent Moon of La Blogetheque fame. Their brand new double live album, R.E.M. Live At The Olympia is due to come out in late October and features 39 songs from the “working rehearsals” that were filmed and featured by Moon in the doc that came with Accelerate.
The material was tested were five nights before fired-up, capacity crowds comprised of fan-club members, friends, family, and fans from all over the world who were privy to R.E.M.’s so-called “experiment in terror,” as guitarist Peter Buck puts it. “We were just trying to do something we hadn’t done before,” Buck says, “which meant there was no relaxing during the set. Every second we were playing something we didn’t know all that well. Which was kind of good — there were all kinds of terror elements going on during that show.”
Here is a sneak peek of the band doing one of my favorites from Accelerate.
