On Saturday night, fifteen hundred lucky R.E.M. fans got a one-night only reunion of Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe for the band’s Georgia Music HOF induction. Well, we assume they were R.E.M. fans. Maybe they were there to congratulate co-inductee Jermaine Dupri.
According to NME.com, “Stipe saluted everyone from Georgia who has made an impact in the arts, from OutKast to Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts, before thanking their office, partners, employees, families, friends and fans.”
The band’s three song set is on YouTube, which is especially exciting for those of us who couldn’t make it to the foursome’s reunion at their friend’s wedding in an Athens bowling alley last fall.
Watch: “Begin The Begin,” “Losing My Religion,” and “Man On The Moon,” (“a song about life and about passage and about what each of us make of our short time here on Earth”) which Stipe dedicated to Ann Richards.
Thanks for all the years of great music Julia Roberts!
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Pretty unexciting. Where was Julia Roberts when we needed her?…
I wouldn’t say unexciting. I just think that the electricity of the moment was probably only felt in the room.
On another note, I miss Bill Berry. I think he added a depth and richness to REM’s music that just isn’t there now. Just my opinion.
Maybe we should comment on who we think the best alt/indie drummer is. My vote I think is obvious.
God, I feel like one of THOSE fans, where I’m angry they played the hits, but you know what? Their hits are nothing to scoff at, so I don’t really care.
But yeah, Bill Berry definitely needs to be put back into the fold. I know he said at the time that he didn’t want to come back just to be in the studio, but I really think that might be the shot in the arm they need. I’ve heard he wrote “Leave” and “Everybody Hurts” among other songs so…the guy’s obviously an integral part of the band.
This was actually the band’s second reunion in a week. They played at the 40 Watt Club for the first time in more than a decade last Tuesday. And this lineup reunited for a wedding last year at Kingpin’s bowling alley in Athens, just the original four. It was awesome!
Jimmy Chamberlin gets my vote for best alt-rock drummer,but the best “indie” drummer has got to be Mark Price of Archers Of Loaf.
I was there. It was a nice night, though there were maybe 400 actual “fans” amongst the 1,500+ muckety-mucks there. (The governor, senators, lobbyists, Jermaine Dupri, yawn.) Stipe introduced the set by saying “This is gonna be loud.”
Even more noteworthy than the three “hits” with Berry were R.E.M. (sans Stipe) backing Gregg Allman on “Midnight Rider” for the encore.
There was an afterparty a few blocks away — R.E.M. took up a downtown storefront, blocked off a street, set up a tent and had some nice drinks and catering. The whole band (plus Scott McCaughey) was there, so after twenty years I finally got to meet Michael Stipe, who was more warm and approachable than I expected. We clinked glasses and drank a champagne toast to Georgia, since his Athens-based international band did pave the way for a certain Atlanta-based international music magazine. (Paste’s founder graduated from UGA in the early 90s.)
Now all they need is Berry back for the next record. A long shot, maybe, but here’s hopin’.
That’s awesome Reid. I’m jealous.
i agree with everyone saying berry needs to come back. at first i thought it was a coincidence that up, marked by a distinctly different sound, was the first album following his departure; now it seems apparent that berry was vital to their sound. i believe he also wrote can’t get there from here and me in honey, btw. but i can’t be certain.
good to see that berry didnt ditch his (ernie &) bert unibrow
The number of classic REM tunes that were written entirely or largely by Bill Berry would shock most fans. All the way back to “Perfect Circle,” which was all Bill. BTW, REM — Bill included — also recorded a new track at Chase Park Transduction studio in Athens last week, with my pal David Barbe (Drive-By Truckers) producing, a cover of John Lennon’s “No. 9 Dream” that will be on some charity compilation disc.
Frank is right. Bill Berry was responsible for the creation of many songs that later became REM classics. When he left, the heart and soul of the band disappeared, as is evident from their post-1997 recordings.
if i’m not mistaken, when they played the 40 Watt last week Stipe said something about them ‘recording together’ earlier in the week. i believe it was for a one-off charity single, but maybe it’ll warm berry up to the idea of returning – at least to the studio, if nothing else.
Michael Stipe is the finest rock and roll lead singer since Freddie Mercury left the mortal coil. Wanna argue? He’ll send his Italian TV chef mafia buddies after your ass.
Hey, if not for Julia Roberts, the music world would still be without Go West’s “King of Wishful Thinking”!!!
I think the Technorati ranks are quite skewed with regards to blogs the recently moved to science blogs. And from my own experience with Technorati, “recently” in their terms can be weeks… They’re not always up to date, and have a very hard time handling moved sites or merged domains (two urls both leading to the same site). I tried that once and suddenly I had 0 incoming links, said the mighty Technorati website. Then I had to wait about a month for support, so you can see why I don’t believe in Technorati’s numbers very much.
I am a “multi-blogger”. I have three blogs on TypePad (one general blog [current events, sports, books, movies], one photoblog, one parenting blog), a work-related one on Blogger, and another group-authored blog on Blogger as well. One reason to have multiple blogs is to separate your work life and interests from your personal life.