Pop Song '89

A post from a few years ago, but I've found some photos from the Monster tour gig they played in Cardiff, to reposting!

I guess the first R.E.M song I heard was "The One I Love", but the first R.E.M music which really made an impression was the "Green" album. I was introduced to it by my bestest mate Matthew and it soundtracked the Summer of '89. It was an important Summer for me as I was starting the process of leaving home and moving to Cardiff. I loved "Green" (still do) and tracked down all their previous albums and couldn't quite believe just how good they were. I had a chance to see them in Newport Centre but didn't, I've regretted it ever since.

I finally got a chance to see the band when they played the old Arms Park Stadium in 1995. The band were massive by then. I remember being stupidly excited about finally seeing them. My memories of the gig are hazy but I'm left with the overwhelming memory that the gig was a bit flat. Bill Berry had just recovered from a near fatal brain aneurysm and the space seemed to just swallow the band up.

I had the opportunity to see R.E.M many times over the years and they seemed to grow comffortable with being a big band and wore it well. Without doubt the best set I saw them do was a 'suprise' appearance at an Amnesty gig at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd snap up the new albums as soon as they came out and they were pretty much my favourite band, but somewhere R.E.M lost their way. It would be too glib to say that the wheels came off when Bill Berry left the band, but they didn't seem to ever recover from that and began to make records which were too self concious and forced. It was sad to see such a mighy band go into such a decline. I still listened to the albums and there would be moments of brilliance. For me 2004's "Around the Sun" was the nadir, even Peter Buck said "(Around the Sun)... just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore.". Yet even that album had it's moments, Electron Bluebeing a rare high.

The writing had been on the wall for R.E.M for awhile, but I really felt it when they failed to sell enough tickets to play the stadium in Cardiff for a third appearance a few years ago. The gig got moved to the Cardiff International Arena, which was packed and the band gave an energised performance as though they had something to prove, but it was very visable evidence that their appeal had started to get "more selective".

So am I sad that R.E.M have split up? Well yes and no. Yes because it's more evidence of the inevitable marching of time. I passed a house the other day which once belonged to a friends parents and saw a young family moving in. Something has ended. Nobecause R.E.M hadn't made a conistantly good album in over a decade, and their recent song "Mine Smell of Honey" actually smelled of something completely different.

R.E.M you were brilliant, pretentious, funny, thrilling and for the longest longest time I loved you.

I guess the first R.E.M song I heard was "The One I Love", but the first R.E.M music which really made an impression was the "Green" album. I was introduced to it by my bestest mate Matthew and it soundtracked the Summer of '89. It was an important Summer for me as I was starting the process of leaving home and moving to Cardiff. I loved "Green" (still do) and tracked down all their previous albums and couldn't quite believe just how good they were. I had a chance to see them in Newport Centre but didn't, I've regretted it ever since.

I finally got a chance to see the band when they played the old Arms Park Stadium in 1995. The band were massive by then. I remember being stupidly excited about finally seeing them. My memories of the gig are hazy but I'm left with the overwhelming memory that the gig was a bit flat. Bill Berry had just recovered from a near fatal brain aneurysm and the space seemed to just swallow the band up.

I was lucky enough to see R.E.M many times over the years and they seemed to grow comffortable with being a big band and wore it well. Without doubt the best set I saw them do was a 'suprise' appearance at an Amnesty gig at the Hammersmith Apollo. I'd snap up the new albums as soon as they came out and they were pretty much my favourite band, but somewhere R.E.M lost their way. It would be too glib to say that the wheels came off when Bill Berry left the band, but they didn't seem to ever recover from that and began to make records which were too self concious and forced. It was sad to see such a mighy band go into such a decline. I still listened to the albums and there would be moments of brilliance. For me 2004's "Around the Sun" was the nadir, even Peter Buck said "(Around the Sun)... just wasn't really listenable, because it sounds like what it is, a bunch of people that are so bored with the material that they can't stand it anymore.". Yet even that album had it's moments, Electron Blue being a rare high.

The writing had been on the wall for R.E.M for awhile, but I really felt it when they failed to sell enough tickets to play the stadium in Cardiff for a third appearance a few years ago. The gig got moved to the Cardiff International Arena, which was packed and the band gave an energised performance as though they had something to prove, but it was very visable evidence that their appeal had started to get "more selective".

So am I sad that R.E.M have split up? Well yes and no. Yes because it's more evidence of the inevitable marching of time. I passed a house the other day which once belonged to a friends parents and saw a young family moving in. Something has ended. No because R.E.M hadn't made a conistantly good album in over a decade, and their recent song "Mine Smell of Honey" actually smelled of something completely different.

R.E.M you were brilliant, pretentious, funny, thrilling and for the longest longest time I loved you.