R.E.M. "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" (18.8 MB) from Monster United Center Chicago, IL June 6, 2008

I don't think I could overstate how important R.E.M. were to my musical taste-development as a tween and early teen. Along with Nirvana's Nevermind, Out of Time and Automatic For the People helped to open up a whole world of alternative rock, both directly and by opening up channels to music's mainstream for subsequent acts like Radiohead, the Breeders, Weezer, the Cranberries, etc. Until I moved to Madison I was never within 200 miles of the sort of venue they might play in the superstar phase of their career, so that I was planning to skip this show is kind of a big deal.

When the show was announced, I was just starting to get into their new record, Accelerate, and while I appreciated that it was much better than their last three albums, it still wasn't great. On top of that, $45 upper deck tickets + $60 to drive to Chicago and park + we'd have to come back that night so Emily could work the next morning meant it was a non-starter. But then we found out a couple of friends were going, so travel costs were halved, and I found myself getting more and more into the album. I'd also been hearing good things about the career-spanning sets they've been playing and I thought, you know, they're on The List, and we should just do it, so we did.

This was the first big single they played, the song that launched the hard rock version of the band and began their short reign as perhaps the world's biggest band. With the stage all lit up, the video quality on these clips is quite a bit better than those from the openers, thankfully.

[ #remunited ]