Album Review: R.E.M. shines with polish in first live album
“R.E.M. Live” is the first live CD/DVD package in the band’s 27-year career, and audio-wise, it’s a competent document of their excellent live show.In a world of poorly-mixed live records, R.E.M. delivers one that sounds excellent all around. Crowd noise is unobtrusive and the instruments are as clear as on the studio counterparts.
The songs from R.E.M.’s most recent and most maligned album, “Around the Sun,” are given new life here. The flat production is done away with and songs such as “The Ascent of Man” are imbued with a sense of energy sorely lacking from the recorded versions.
Their biggest hits (“Losing My Religion,” “Everybody Hurts,” “The One I Love”) take unremarkable turns in the setlist, but the band also left room for a few obscure numbers. The set starts out with “I Took Your Name,” a dark, groovy rocker from their 1994 grunge-experiment, “Monster.” Bassist Mike Mills takes a turn on vocals near the end of the show for “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville,” from 1984’s “Reckoning.” They also perform the unreleased “I’m Gonna DJ,” which sounds like a Hold Steady B-side with its bar rock feel and emphasis on shouted vocals.
Unfortunately, the design of the DVD portion of “R.E.M. Live” is awful. There are enough jump-cuts to induce seizures and the cameras shake enough for it to be mistaken for “The Blair Witch Project.”
Worse are the Photoshop effects overlaid on some of the footage. “Bad Day” switches between black-and-white and color footage while other portions of the performance are washed out, brightened or slowed down. They’re intended to look cool and dynamic but they needlessly obscure the most important part of a concert DVD: the performance.
Thankfully, the performance is great. Michael Stipe remains one of the most energetic frontmen on earth. When he’s not singing, he’s usually moving around the stage like he’s possessed.
Guitarist Peter Buck and Mills mostly stand still and play while Stipe does his thing but add something of their own to each of the songs, as evidenced by Mills’ furious playing on “Cuyahoga.”
The highlight of the show is “Orange Crush,” a song about paranoia that deeply reflects the current political climate, even though it was written back in 1988. Unfortunately, it also showcases the biggest problem with “R.E.M. Live.” The camera shakes so violently throughout the performance that it’s hard to discern what’s happening.
At that point the DVD stops being a document of a live performance and becomes more of an attempt to make R.E.M. seem like they’re still cool. In that attempt, however, they’ve forgotten the great thing about the band’s shows: the energy they create without pointless camera angles. In this case, dizzying does not equal exciting.
R.E.M.
‘R.E.M. Live’
Release Date: Oct. 16
Genre:
Alt. rock
Grade:
B-
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on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment.
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