Some favorite R.E.M. videos/songs and one I wish they would have played

I recently went to see Modest Mouse and R.E.M. in concert on Wednesday of last week, and they were great! Here’s a couple of videos of my favorite songs of theirs they played, and one they didn’t:

One of my favorite songs, called “Fall On Me”, from my favorite album of theirs, 1986’s “Lifes Rich Pageant”. This is probably one of R.E.M.’s first political songs, along with “Cuyahoga” and “The Flowers of Guatemala” from the same album, with this one being about acid rain. They would continue this trend with “Exhuming McCarthy” and “Welcome to the Occupation” from 1987’s Document, “Orange Crush” and “World Leader Pretend” from 1988’s “Green”, and “Ignoreland” from 1992’s “Automatic for the People”. The lyrics are interesting with their message, and Michael Stipe really sings his heart out on this song (along with some nice melodic singing too), with Mike Mills providing great backing vocals, while the music is fitting with the jangly Rickenbacker of Peter Buck. This song was played during the encore, I believe, with The Smiths’ and Modest Mouse’s guitarist Johnny Marr guesting.

One of my favorites from 1985’s “Fables of the Reconstruction”, this song is called “Driver 8″. The lyrics describe the scenery from a train ride, and are fairly enjoyable; Michael Stipe again stretches his voice during the portion with the harmonica (the climax portion). Peter Buck plays an interesting guitar riff on this song – the beginning one that shows up several times throughout the song, and this is interplayed with some melodic strumming. Overall, I think this song, and all of “Fables”, make very good summer listening material. This song was played during the main portion of the concert, and I sure wasn’t expecting it.

Speaking of political songs, this is one of my favorite political songs of R.E.M.’s. The arpeggio guitar playing of Peter Buck, interspersed with acoustic guitar playing (I think) and the hushed vocals of Michael Stipe make this song a great ballad like one. The lyrics apparently deal with the Reagan administration’s counter communism operations, as well as the deaths of those killed by the U.S. backed military government in Guatemala (originally established in 1954 through a coup). The unusual thing about this song is that Peter Buck includes a guitar solo in it – something he rarely did with most of R.E.M.’s 80s songs.

I was really hoping that R.E.M. would play “The Flowers of Guatemala” at the concert (apparently it was played fairly often in the past during tours, though not so much recently – didn’t find this out until after the tour, though), but they sadly didn’t.

~ by isolator86 on June 19, 2008.