ID:16853
ひぽこんコラム
by 和田
[829552hit]
■ＲＥＭ2005の記録！
When London suffered a terrorist bombing atrocity on July 7, Mike Mills was asleep in bed in the city; the band was using London as a staging post for its second UK stint on the run-in to a Cardiff tour finale. In fact, in the hours following the explosions, it became clear that R.E.M. would have to postpone their July 9 Hyde Park date by a week, following what Bertis Downs described as a "sad day". When the band played its first show since the attacks, up the road in Ipswich some days later, they could have been forgiven for not knowing quite how to respond -- after opening with Everybody Hurts and reading a statement, the band played a storming set in celebration of life and hope, a theme that appeared to mark the closing days of the tour.
An epiphany of positivity - hope unbounded (July 10)
It was during this period, toward the tour's end, that I, perhaps finally, realised what R.E.M. meant. I had already been healed and jumpstarted into a new outlook by October 2004's optimistic Around The Sun. Now, thumping the Cardiff air as R.E.M. mobilised fellow outsiders to infuse "volcanic change of thought", injecting Electron Blue's future addiction along with tens of thousands of others, having Mike Mills tell me beforehand they would play to heal the crowd and, most of all, mouthing back the words "we are young, we are concern, we are hope despite the times", it became starkly clear. R.E.M. - in their against-the-grain chords, their poetry, in their whole ongoing story - represent unlikely hope in the face of adversity. Anthemic and spiritual, the band may again have been riding the border between outsiderdom and stadium status, and it's in that dichotomy that I was hit with the realisation R.E.M. have a way to tap the hurt outsider in each and every one of us, yet make us feel as though we are being addressed directly, and draw out the slightest seed of optmism we may have left but nurture it into something beautiful and flowering, something that, above all, overcomes. On personal and sadly topical levels, the band had never felt more relevant - the tour may have been drawing to a close, but it felt like just the beginning. Thanks to R.E.M., HQ and Mike for a cool day.
It's The End Of The Tour As We Know It (Really) (July 17)
Never let it be said that R.E.M.'s 2004/05 world tour was not a full-on treat. Terrorist attacks in London had delayed the band's Hyde Park show, recasting the date as a new finale. Diehards and casuals alike emerged with delirious reports from a gig that was graced by the appearance of Patti Smith and which rounded off a tour consisting of something like 123 dates. Given 10 out of 10 by a majority of Murmursians, the tour was a triumphant, energetic, stratospheric experience from a band that didn't want to come down. After it all, Michael Stipe couldn't contain himself, so he wrote a loving thank-you note to anyone who would listen; Bertis, too, had to write it out of his system. Murmurs' response was a resounding "we love you, too".
R.E.M. play surprise show in Athens with Bill Berry (October 17)
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