On the one hand, there is one of the biggest stages you can play on as a band: Glastonbury, Pyramid Stage, headliner slot. It’s 1999, REM have just lost their drummer Bill Berry. On UP, the first album without him, a shy electronic drum kit takes over the rhythm work for the most part. But when it comes to bringing the new songs and highlights from the catalog to the stage at Glastonbury, the band asks their live drummer Joey Waronker to really give it their all: REM were a big, loud, huge rock band.
On the other hand, there is St. James’s Church in the west end of London, located between the hustle and bustle of Piccadilly Circus and the luxury hotel The Ritz. REM played a single concert there in 2004, in front of a few hundred invited guests. And although the band starts this gig with the same song as the Glastonbury show, the fabulous and underrated “So Fast, So Numb” from NEW ADVENTURES IN HI-FI, the evening develops in a different direction. If REM went for space in Glastonbury, they narrowed the space in the church, which they achieved particularly well with “E-Bow The Letter” and “Leaving New York”.
What a blessing
What both shows have in common: The BBC recorded them. What a blessing. The collected recordings from the station’s archive were first released in 2017. The box with eight CDs and one DVD was quickly sold out, but Concord is now reissuing the set again. The music is also available on streaming services, but the individuality of the recordings is lost in the masses. The CD version guarantees, firstly, clarity, secondly, better sound, and thirdly, additional video material, which also includes the BBC documentary “Accelerating Backwards”, which cannot be found online.
The oldest recordings date from 1984. REM are touring Europe with their second album RECKONING, in a club in Nottingham, far away from London. The BBC is still there and tries its best to get this nervous jingle-jangle college band on tape adequately. Peter Buck’s guitar does this excellently, but the balance between drums and vocals is definitely a problem, which is mainly due to Michael Stipe’s style of singing: At the time, he didn’t see himself as a lead singer, but rather as a syllable and melody provider, and he tended to avoid the microphone. The recording is still a great document because it proves how strong the band’s artistic vision was back then – and how incredibly beautiful the song “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry)” is.
Breathtakingly good
Seven years later, REM are already a fundamentally different group. For BBC 1 she plays in the series “Sessions Into The Night”, it is the phase in which REM strips off their songs, which can also be heard in the “MTV Unplugged” recording from this period. The versions of the fantastic B-side “Fretless” and the fan favorite “Half The World Away” from the commercial breakthrough album OUT OF TIME are breathtakingly good. The BBC recording of a show in Milton Keynes in 1995 shows how quickly the group developed in the 1990s: The band has just reinvented itself as an alternative guitar band with MONSTER, the gig is loud and distorted. REM avoid the elegance of AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE, “Drive” is reinterpreted as a rock song. Of the live recordings of the OUT OF TIME highlight “Country Feedback”, this version has the most intense guitar – even trumped by “Let Me In”, the moment when REM arranged their balladry in the style of shoegaze nerds like Flying Saucer Attack or My Bloody Valentine.
At the end of the 1990s, REM finally visited John Peel. The fact that the legendary DJ didn’t invite the band to his place earlier may prove that he wasn’t the biggest fan under the sun. Especially since he didn’t let REM make exclusive recordings in the BBC studio in 1998, but rather suggested an intimate session. The band didn’t care, especially the powerful version of the Patti Smith tribute “Walk Unafraid” stands out.
Since the respective recordings were usually not curated, the great REM songs “Man On The Moon” (eight times) and “Losing My Religion” (six times) can be heard very often. The song about the man on the moon from the BBC’s nightly “Drivetime” session in 2003 sounds particularly beautiful, like a forgotten power pop ballad in the style of Big Star.
This review appears in Musikexpress 4/2026.
