REM!!!!!!!!!!

I got to re-live my college days tonight - Jeff and I took Adrianne to see REM for her birthday. It was a great show. The band really seemed to enjoy being in the Triangle area (and we got to give Adrianne a little REM history lesson, explaining that, after Athens, the next place they got really big was the Triangle). It was the penultimate show of this tour -- they play in Atlanta tomorrow night. At first we thought we were going to feel incredibly old (it's been a really long time since we went to a concert), but as we were waiting in line for parking, we realized that everyone around us was as old or older than we were! Adrianne brought the median age down significantly (Peter wanted to go, and would've brought it down even more, but we thought 5 was a little young for an REM concert).

It was a cool show, with lots of great songs to sing and dance to. The weird part was they played absolutely nothing off of Monster. They also didn't play anything off of Chronic Town or Dead Letter office, but those two are a little more understandable. Other than that I think every album was pretty well represented. They didn't play Don't Go Back to Rockville, which is one of my favorites, or E-Bow the Letter (which is a fave because I LOVE the Patty Smyth backup vocals). But, they played both Night Swimming and Find the River, both of which I love, so that was good.

The best part, however, came in the encore. Michael was introducing the Band. He introduced the acoustic guitar player, and the drummer (since Bill Berry stopped playing with them years ago), and some other random guy, then introduced the guy playing extra percussion.....and lo and behold if it wasn't Bill Berry. Unbelievable. He came out and actually played drums for the next to the last song. He didn't actually play the set on End of the World (the song they closed with), but I think he did do the opening riff. It was very cool, and just re-inforced my belief that this is it, they're done touring.

It was kinda fun to go to a concert again, too. Being hopelessly old, Jeff and I haven't been to a show since long before Peter was born. I'd nearly forgotten how weird people are. There was a woman a couple of rows back who really, really wanted to hear Superman -- she screamed it out at every lull in Michael's on stage patter. Then there was the group in front of us -- a half dozen people, 3 males and 3 females, essentially our age. One of the pairs seemed to be pretty monogamous, but the other four people seemed to be swapping partners willy nilly. It was very odd, and I don't pretend to understand it in the least. But, I have to admit it was amusing to watch, at least until they got so schnockered they were having trouble standing up.

I've been trying to think why I like REM so much. I've decided that it is, as most things are, for a complex variety of reasons. Basic access is one -- their rise follows my adolescence to a tee (Chronic Town came out in 1981, which is the year I started high school -- by 1989 when Green came out and I finished college, they had come through the Alternative/College Radio stage, and were actually popular). And, of course, I think it's partially because they're more or less my age, so they were writing songs about things that I cared about when I cared about them. Don't Go Back To Rockville, to me, perfectly captures the feelings you have when you've met someone wonderful, but you had the bad luck to meet them as Spring Semester was winding down and now they're LEAVING! And who knows WHAT will happen over the summer! If I heard the song for the first time now, at 36, it wouldn't make the same impression on me, but encountering it for the first time as a teenager it spoke to me in a way that no pop song now could possibly do. And, conversely, their more recent songs touch on subject that I care about now, as opposed to the dreck that boy-bands turn out. And, finally, I just really like their music. They're talented, they're exciting, they seem to love what they do, and they put on a hell of a show.

It was also neat that Adrianne was able to come. When she was about 10 or 11 she got into REM, which was great. It made me feel incredibly old, though, because she asked for some 'old' REM that year (1992 -ish), and as I'm thinking, "Cool, I can buy my niece Murmur, or Reckoning..." she informed me that It's the End of the World was old. Sigh. Anyway, we gave her Eponymous for her birthday, and then a couple of years later took her to the Monster Tour, which I think was her first 'real' concert (she thinks she saw the Back Street Boy before REM, but I don't know that that would count as a real show). So it was fitting that we take her to see them again for her 21st! And, the show lasted till nearly 11, so by the time we got back to Chapel Hill it was past midnight so we took her to Top of the Hill for her first legal drinks! (Apple-tini's rock, by the way).

All in all a good night, and if I'm right and they're done touring, a good last show to remember them by.