MTV Unplugged: R.E.M. (2001)

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MTV Unplugged's logo for artists appearing a second time.
MTV Unplugged's logo for artists appearing a second time.

On May 21, 2001, ten years and one month after their debut on the show, R.E.M. returned to MTV Unplugged, and to date became only the second artist to have appeared twice (10,000 Maniacs being the first). Much had happened to the band in the decade that had passed: five albums released, a second world tour completed, a near-death experience, a manager fired, and a drummer retired.

R.E.M. took to the stage at MTV's TRL Studio, with a backdrop of New York City's Broadway and 45th Avenue, and soaked up the applause as they assumed their positions: Mills on acoustic bass to the left of the stage, Stipe seated at centre, and Buck on acoustic guitar to the right. Hired hands Ken Stringfellow sat behind the synthesizer, Joey Waronker (celebrating his 32nd birthday) behind the drums and percussion on a raised platform behind Stipe, and the bearded Scott McCaughey stood at the xylophone for the opening song, "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)", which was to be R.E.M.'s second single from Reveal. Six songs from said album were performed.

A video of their first appearance (from which only "Losing My Religion" was repeated) played concurrently on a screen at stage left throughout the performance.

Contents

[edit] Setlists

[edit] Unedited

R.E.M. performing the opening "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)".
R.E.M. performing the opening "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)".
  1. "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)"
  2. "Electrolite"
  3. "At My Most Beautiful"
  4. "Sad Professor"
  5. "Daysleeper"
  6. "Beat a Drum"
  7. "I'll Take the Rain"
  8. "I've Been High"
  9. "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  10. "The One I Love" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  11. "Losing My Religion" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  12. "Country Feedback" (Stipe inserted snippets of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" during the outro)
  13. "Cuyahoga"
  14. "Imitation of Life"
  15. "La Bamba" (brief)
  16. "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" (re-take)
  17. "Electrolite" (re-take)
  18. "At My Most Beautiful" (re-take, quickly aborted after Waronker forgot to pick up the sleigh bells)
  19. "At My Most Beautiful" (re-take)
  20. "Beat a Drum" (re-take)
  21. "Disappear"
  22. "Find the River" (dedicated to the late John Seawright)
  23. "Daysleeper" (re-take)
  24. "The Great Beyond" (preceded by Stipe's introducing the personnel)
  25. "The One I Love" (re-take) (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  26. "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (re-take) (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)

[edit] Edited

After editing, and replacing the first takes with the second takes, the setlist appeared thus:

  1. "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)"
  2. "Electrolite"
  3. "At My Most Beautiful"
  4. "Sad Professor"
  5. "Daysleeper"
  6. "Beat a Drum"
  7. "I'll Take the Rain"
  8. "I've Been High"
  9. "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  10. "The One I Love" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  11. "Losing My Religion" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  12. "Country Feedback" (Stipe inserted snippets of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" during the outro)
  13. "Cuyahoga"
  14. "Imitation of Life"
  15. "Disappear"
  16. "Find the River"
  17. "The Great Beyond"

[edit] Broadcast

The aired set shortened the proceedings even more considerably:

  1. "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)"
  2. "Electrolite"
  3. "At My Most Beautiful"
  4. "Daysleeper"
  5. "So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  6. "Losing My Religion" (Buck/Mills/Stipe only)
  7. "Country Feedback" (Stipe inserted snippets of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" during the outro)
  8. "Cuyahoga"
  9. "Imitation of Life"
  10. "Find the River"

The performances of "Sad Professor", "Beat a Drum", "I'll Take the Rain", "I’ve Been High", "The One I Love", "Disappear", and "The Great Beyond" (four of which were from the album the band were promoting) were all omitted from the broadcast. Stipe introduced "Find the River" as being "probably not for the cameras", but MTV included it as the closing performance.

[edit] Personnel

R.E.M.

Auxiliary musicians

[edit] Review

“In the MTV studios overlooking Times Square, R.E.M., one of the most respected alternative acts in music since the early '80s, became simply Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck. Three guys together for a night of music,” wrote Dan Aquilante of the New York Post. “The performance that was taped for the MTV series Unplugged was very intimate; there were only 150 invited fans in the studio, and the venue was so small that it broke down the wall between performer and fan. The typically-silent Stipe, the chrome-dome R.E.M. mastermind and frontman, was absolutely chatty, as if he were hosting a party in his own home. He talked about the Chinese herb that ‘should be kicking in soon’, read news from the Times Square zipper, and he smiled so much that the herb must have been potent. The evening was more like being in a recording studio, where the point is to polish every song to perfection. Stipe often turned to an audience member and asked, ‘Did that sound good?’ It was also a night that showed how the band members interact with each other.

Stipe is clearly the leader, and Mills and Buck, trusted lieutenants. 'Peter, could you give me something here?' Stipe requested, and Buck worked the chord changes on his acoustic guitar for a dozen bars. 'Thanks, I got it,' Stipe said.

Mills, who alternates on bass and piano and is the harmony to Stipe’s reedy tenor, is also the guy with the golden ear. Through the night, songs that sounded fine to the audience were deemed unworthy for the broadcast by Mills and were redone later in the evening. Mills was always right. On the first attempt on the night’s opening song, ‘All The Way To Reno (You’re Gonna Be a Star)’, Stipe, who said he was suffering from extreme allergies, missed the high notes near the close. On take two, it dragged slightly, but finally on the third try, R.E.M. hit the mark. It was pretty much the same story for the equally fine jangly pop tune ‘Imitation of Life’.

The most interesting piece of the night was ‘I’ve Been High’. The tune is charged with trippy electronica swirls and powerful electric guitar riffs backing up Stipe's pleading vocals. After doing justice to the piece in a streamlined acoustic version, Stipe admitted that was the song he was most concerned about. While even the most devoted fan wouldn’t want every R.E.M. concert to be like this one, it was a night when the band revealed the men behind the rock-star masks, and the music was better for it.

'I don’t think they are showing it until the summertime,' explained Buck. 'As far as I know, they aren’t even doing the show anymore. Our first one was really good; it was one of the first. We are also one of the ones who didn’t put it out and sell six million copies. It has kind of got a little mystique about it, the fact that we did it and didn’t release it, and it is still around as a bootleg. We are good at it. We’ve been playing acoustic for twenty years. I kind of like the idea that people can bootleg it. I hate to admit that, but with Napster you know it’s going to be up there in about ten minutes. There is a time where we will do something like what the Grateful Dead does, which is every four months put out some historical thing. We’ve got really good concert recordings dating back almost twenty years. It would be fun to have a document of every tour we’ve done and a document of the acoustic things. But right now, I think it’s cool not to do it. I was just in a record store, and I saw an R.E.M. bootleg, and it was all the B-sides. It was pretty cool. I think it was called Unrevealed or something.'

What about a retrospective box set? 'That would be fun to do someday. I’m not sure there is that much great stuff unreleased. We have tons of unfinished stuff, probably five albums' worth. As far as finished stuff with vocals, probably half an album’s worth of stuff. There’s all the songs we have done for soundtracks and B-sides. I could put together something, but right now it is not something I want to do.'"

[edit] Quotes

“If we fuck up, we start again. [To the audience] You guys don’t exist in real time - this is all for TV. So, just sit back, glue your heels, it’s gonna be a long, rough ride.” - Stipe, prior to the performance of "Sad Professor".

“I have terrible allergies, just in case anyone in the room is wondering. I don’t take Clarityn, and I woke up this morning thinking, ‘Smart people I know take Clarityn’. Anyway, I didn’t think today should be the day to start trying." - Stipe.

"I’ve had [earpieces] for several years, because I’m so esoteric. I’ve been described in media channels as wearing fake hearing aids. In fact, it’s a hearing device so that I can sing better for you. But mine were Band-Aid-colored, and it some point two weeks ago – in Germany, I think – we were like, ‘Why do I have to have Band-Aid-colored ones? What does Laurence Fishburne use when he wants to sing?’ So, we got the Laurence Fishburne version. I’ll send this one out to Laurence.” - Stipe, during the introduction to "Daysleeper".

“Oh God, who’s that guy?! Get that guy off the screen! He’s so sincere, oh my God. He looks great, though, doesn’t he? Jesus, what a fox. It was Unplugged however many years ago – 40, 50 years ago. Life is tough.” - Stipe, referring to the rerun of their 1991 performance on the on-stage screens.

“This isn’t unplugged; this is unabetted.” - Stipe's introduction to "I've Been High".

"We have been sweating blood and sperm over that song for three days: ‘How the hell are we gonna do it?’” - Stipe, after the performance of "I've Been High".

"[This song is] very old, from a very different time of our lives, but it’s quite a beautiful song.” - Stipe, introducing "Cuyahoga".

“Awwww, Santa?” enquired Mills. “No sleigh bells?” asks Buck of Waronker. “That’ll never do.” - prior to the retake of "At My Most Beautiful".

[edit] Buck interview

Speaking with Murmurs.com's Ethan Kaplan a few months after the show, the question was put to Buck that the show seemed a bit lifeless. "You know what it was?" asked the guitarist. "We were in New York City, and they insisted we do it at MTV. And it was a room that holds eighty people, and when we got our families in and the record-company people who wanted to come, there were only, like, four fans in there. It wasn't bad, but the first time we did it with four hundred people in a big room who waited in line," he continued. "And this was mostly friends and industry people, and as much as they enjoyed it, they sat there and looked at us. And that was a little uncomfortable. We did the first pass-through, and it just felt like... everybody was enjoying it, but there was hardly any energy coming back at all. I'm not blaming anyone. My family was there, my seven-year-olds were there - they weren't tearing the joint up. That's what happens in those kinds of situations. You know, if we had more control, we would have had it in a bigger place with more of an audience into seeing the show. The thing is, I listened to it, and if you listen to it, it sounds great. There just isn't much coming off the audience to the stage."

And regarding the editing of the televised broadcast? "The half-hour version, they basically made it look like one song from the new record and a bunch of stuff from the early '90s, when in fact we played for an hour and a half and we did twelve songs from the last two years, and we did six from the previous few. It was really kind of edited to make it look like an oldies show."

Do the band own the rights to the tapes? "When you do things with MTV, it's one of the few things that we don't absolutely own the rights to," continued Buck. "I'm sure we could put it out, but we'd have to pay them, or something, whereas most of the stuff we do we own outright and it reverts to us after a while. But you know, everyone should feel free to tape it."

"We posted it," Kaplan said. "The long one?" enquired Buck. "Yup, the MTV2 one. We posted all of them individually. So far we haven't heard from MTV." "Apparently it's been on several times," continued Buck. "I actually just walked into the house - I mean, I never watch TV at all - and it happened to be on MTV. I saw one song, and it sounded good, looked good. I'm proud of what we do, and I respect people like the Grateful Dead and Pearl Jam who put out every show for the tour. I'd just assumed people do it for themselves. Bootleg it and everything. I like the fact that we've done this huge mountain of work, then every now and then I'll find the bootleg of some '85 German TV show."

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

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