Thursday, April 07, 2005

R.E.M. in Sydney

Saw R.E.M. perform at the Entertainment Centre last Thursday night.
Well, should I talk about them, or me?
Firstly, me.
I did the right thing and bought the t-shirt. My seat sucked unfortunately. I was in the fourth last row, which was kind of the last row since the last 3 rows were empty. So Michael looked very small and the sound was muted, like I was listening to loud music being played by the neighbours. :-( Next time they're here I'll have to get in early and get a better seat dammit
Anyways, they were still good value.
Michael wore a pretty dark blue stripe painted across his face. They played long and hard, getting through lots of their songs. Indeed, I was impressed by their solid work ethic.
What can I definitely remember them playing? There was at least 1 old song and 1 new song I hadn't heard before. They played Electrolite; Animal; Losing My Religion; Leaving New York; Electron Blue; Imitation Of Life; I Wanted To Be Wrong; Man On The Moon; The Great Beyond and others. They also did a nice performance of Happy Birthday for one of their crew.
Two songs that worked really well live were Orange Crush (I can't remember it well enough to say if it sounded better than the original, but it was definitely very effectively played and I can say I enjoyed it more than the album version), and Everybody Hurts, which was beautiful and touching and had a good part of the audience joining in in the singing.
Am very pleased I finally got to see them live. Hopefully they'll return sometime and I can make sure I get a better seat!

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