REM has taken Vancouver as a second home. After spending months longer in the city than it took them to record their last album, talking fondly of it at their last show here, they were back for a more intimate show at the Orpheum. The stage set-up was incredible - hanging from the ceiling and cascading all over the stage were vertical rods that would light up in all sorts of different colour combinations. They also employed an immense starry backdrop. Without a word, the band stepped on stage and began their set, with Michael Stipe cavorting around, dancing at stage edge, and just putting on a great performance. He’s still sporting that pale blue stripe across his eyes, that from a distance kind of makes him look like Batman. I wonder if that’s permanent by now… One of his earliest comments addressing the audience involved how much his pants kept slipping off his “diminishing waistline.” I don’t know if the guy can get much thinner.

Not much was spoken though till middle of the show, where Stipe thanked Vancouver, and riled people up by saying Winnipeg and Calgary were amazing. You see, the crowd was well-behaved, but REM doesn’t want a well-behaved crowd. They want people up and out of their seats, shaking and dancing and reveling in this holy union of musical bliss that binds every last fucking one of us in that room. There were few takers on the balcony where I was, and the small pockets of people that were up and dancing were well-recognized by Stipe who would stand on monitors and point to them, smile, dance with them. That man knows how to move around. Through all the band’s songs, old and new (many classic songs like the set-ending “Man On The Moon” were introduced as basically being songs that REM realizes are fan favorites, and they are “songs that belong to you, and we’re happy to play them for you.” Much appreciation), he slinks around, slides his feet across the stage, creeps about, staring intently at the audience members in front of him. He anxiously quivers and tugs his shirt up and rubs a finger across his nipples and down his torso. He gets on his knees to get closer to the crowd, or stands tall at the stage edge with one hand in the air swinging back and forth to illustrate in time the beat of “Tick…. Tock….. Tick….. Tock….”

One of Stipe’s earliest comments was, “we are REM and this is what we do.” He also ended off the evening with this comment. His parents were in attendance. He talked about Vancouver and its open curtain fascination, and his curious voyeurism while he was staying in the city. He threw papers and hat out into crowd. The band’s three-song ‘set of the future’ was dedicated to Douglas Copeland, who was also in attendance. The encore consisted of four songs. Two were the oldest song ever written, but never recorded in 1980, and the most recent recorded but not released, which had been written in Vancouver.

I may have never been so tense at a show. My shoulders were hunched and my jaw quivering, it was all so deep-reaching. I’d had a strangely emotional week, though I’d began to feel like I should stop being a twerp about it all and let things slide, but being at this show turned me into a wreck. Every emotion, thought, and feeling I’d run through all week washed back over the front of my consciousness again, and I felt like, if I were to stand up suddenly and shout everything out, that Stipe would stand there and listen to me and offer his heartfelt agreement. He makes himself vulnerable on stage as well, talking about his childhood and being teased for his Texas accent after moving to Georgia, and about being as insecure as anyone in the crowd, despite his height on the stage. He spoke like we were real people, real friends, with real thoughts and feelings, rather than just as a crowd paying his bills. I suppose being a fan of a band helps when you go to see and write about them, but I doubt anyone could deny the engaging qualities of this show. The lights, the dancing, the pristine sound quality, everything was spot on. Tick tock tick tock.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Tanya Volk
Published February 2005.