We roll into the parking lot, the rain has been intermittent
throughout the drive there, but it seems optimistic that everything will be
OK. Shockingly and almost immediately, I
notice something for the first time at a show that I hadn’t in a long time – I
didn’t feel the need to be using a walker or cane, when looking around at the
other concert goers. Folks were actually in our demographic, and everyone seems
genuinely excited to be there, and not just because they got totally blasted
out in the parking lot. (not to say there isn’t something to be said for that).
The National was just wrapping up as we walked in and Modest
Mouse was up next. After a quick bite to eat, we decided to check out our ‘4th
Row’ seats and catch a little bit of the MM set. Turns out, where our seats were, on the stage
right, there is no Row A, B, or C so our seats turned out to be Front row! I’ve
never been to show at a large venue and sat front row – little did we know how
awesome and important it would be to making the entire experience so fantastic.
About 6 songs into the MM set, it started to rain and we
decided we’d seen enough and didn’t want to get that wet watching them so we
ducked inside, as lightly flashed in the distance and some thunder
rumbled. Turns out, about 5 minutes
after we ducked under the vestibule, torrential rains showed up and even worse
than that, lightning struck, unbeknownst to us, the venue and immediately shut
down the show for 90 minutes. We thought it was just the driving rain, but we
found out the next day that it was an actual lightning strike!
We were discussing our concert weather disasters, perhaps
jinxing ourselves, on the way there. The Teach had been to a Counting Crowes
show that was stopped for 2 hours and didn’t finish up until 1 in the AM. I
mentioned that I’d been to two shows, both in RFK that had lightning strikes,
one of them being the Tibetan Freedom Festival when R.E.M. was playing. So we
waiting, and waited and waited for the thunder (and supposedly the rain) to
stop, but it never did.
The thunder was gone by 10 and the show was rolling by
10:10, but the rain never, and I mean never let up until we were walking back to
our cars after the show was over. However, R.E.M. delivered, big time. The set
was fantastic, our seats were great and they were not afraid to make up for it.
They opened up the show with ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain?’
straight into South Central Rain.
Michael joked about they considered opening up with ‘I’ll take the rain’ but
decided a 7 minute ballad wasn’t the way to treat the audience who was
miserably wet. Almost immediately, Mike
Mills was out from the stage overpass and playing right in front of us. It was
amazing and we couldn’t have closer to him if we had seen them at a small club.
And in that case, we would have been getting crushed by the crowds behind us.
In this case, we had plenty of space to dance and enjoy. I literally could have reached out and
touched Mike Mills bass.
It brought me back to a flashback. Back in the day, when I
was dating another S actually, she dragged me to see the BoDeans. No offense to
them, but I just didn’t like them (and I really like a lot of bands) but she loved
them and it was in a cool venue, the Fox Theater, down in Atlanta, GA
But the redeeming part of the show, was we
ended up standing next to Mike Mills the entire time and I, a bit star struck
(which isn’t really me) shook his hand, told him I loved their music and it was
great. He was very appreciative and nice
about the whole thing. I just love this
guy because he used to be so conservative and kind of geeky and now he’s total
rock star, rock a billy cowboy books.
The show continued, blazing through all areas of the rock
history and delivering song after song. Michael even managed to come over to
our side of the stage, wink and wave at us while we let me take this pretty
cool picture of him. It was awesome.
Back to the not that star struck, Michael Stipe is one of
those guys who if I met on the streets in NYC, I would loose my cool. Anyone
else, it would be fun and would be cool, but I think I would be acting normal.
For some reason, I would loose it meeting him.
At the end of their ‘set’, the band looked around and
decided to skip heading backstage for the encore. They just said, pretend we
left, you applaud and we’re back, which was definitely nice since it was still
raining. They also made an audible and
played ‘It’s the End of The World As We Know It… And I feel fine’ which Michael
promised was ‘completely unrehearsed’ and he ‘swore he’d never play again’ –
which certainly is understandable since it’s been a staple on their set list
for the past 5 or 6 tours.
When it was over, it was fantastic and I was so pumped that
I made it.
Setlist:
Have You Ever Seen The Rain...
1. So. Central Rain
2. These Days
3. Living Well Is the Best Revenge
4. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
5. Man-Sized Wreath
6. 1,000,000
7. Ignoreland
8. Hollow Man
9. Welcome To The Occupation
10. Houston
11. Electrolite
12. Horse to Water
13. The One I Love
14. Let Me In
15. Bad Day
16. Orange Crush
17. I'm Gonna DJ
18. Supernatural Superserious
19. Losing My Religion
20. It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
21. Fall On Me
22. Man On The Moon
