Recommendations of the Editorial team
From Berlin, these two artists wrote music history. Rem shared a nostalgic photo on Instagram on August 1st, the front man Michael Stipe together with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke while smoking shisha shows. A relaxed moment of two giants of alternative music. You write: “A Musical Footnote to some Significant History” – “A musical footnote on some important history”.
What happened on August 1, 1995 between Michael Stipe and Thom Yorke?
Let’s best let Michael Stipe tell:
Today anniversary for the 30th anniversary: For the first time, the band played in the Waldbühne, an intimate but huge amphitheater in Berlin, which is located directly below the steep hill of the 1936 Olympic Stadium. The venue was also built at this time and has therefore certainly experienced a lot in different eras and times. It was also the first time that the band hit Radiohead, a (for us) relatively new band, even though they were on the program two days earlier at the second big Milton Keynes concert.
Our agent had hired Radiohead about a year earlier for this part of our European tour when their first album was quite successful and established themselves as a serious band to keep an eye on. In September 1993 they presented their debut album Pablo Honey in the 40 Watt Club in Athens. When they performed as a opening up for REM on this tour, they had just released their second album, The Bends. And whatever you call it when it is “love at first glance” between bands and soul mates. That’s exactly what it was.
I will not try to describe Radiohead’s sound in Berlin that evening, except to say that it was powerful and wild, melodic and intense and unmistakable. Rem had been on tour in Australia since January and had to accept some serious setbacks. The show with Radiohead in Berlin felt like the beginning of a particularly exciting chapter. Not to mention the lifelong friendship that has developed between the band members. Radiohead worked on songs for their next album, and they got pretty good too! “Ok computer”!
And as it turned out, the young Thom Yorke led a diary for the Mojo Magazine, which of course I read again on the occasion of the anniversary of our first meeting. Very interesting! And for the protocol: he “still has that certain something”, although I can hardly imagine that I actually said that. I must have been very nervous!
The chemistry immediately voted – musically and human
Both bands were at crucial points of their careers – a factor that has certainly also contributed to the fact that Stipe and Yorke feel connected to this day. And both bands have written albums that are among the most influential records of the nineties today.