Shiny Happy People, and a positive eyeballing

THIS ONE GOES OUT TO- THE ONE I LOVE… sang Stipe.

Managed to get to the REM gig last night – Catherine’s mood earlier in the week, the previous two evenings’ gigs being cancelled, and suggestions of foul driving conditions had put the whole thing in doubt. Anyway, it went ahead, and here’s a 14-bullet-point summary review:-

1. Catherine was tired, but on entertaining and upbeat form
2. So was I
3. Birmingham NEC Arena was a better venue than I’d imagined it would be – felt smaller than I thought it would
4. We were standing about 8 or 9 rows of bodies from the front – good view
5. The show was a sell-out
6. The weather had no impact on size of audience
7. The crowd were sensible (i.e. older, and largely sober)
8. Support act ‘Now It’s Overheard’ – also from Athens, Georgia – dirgesome and bland, though at times reminded me of ‘My Bloody Valentine’ and ‘Erasure’ – which, to those who know these groups, will sound inconsistent, but that’s how it was
9. On stage, during REM’s set, there were 6 people:-
9.1. Michael Stipe – agile, wiry, gorgeous, happy, performed for every second that he was on stage, but did have one moment of ‘worthiness’ which had to be endured
9.2. Mike Mills – gladly, recovered from the ‘serious ear infection’ that cancelled the previous evenings’ gigs – looked well, played well – the anchor of REM
9.3. Peter Buck – flat expression, loud shirt, plodsomely did what he was paid to do
9.4. BigHairBigHat guitarist – added an overweight energy and novelty factor that was never going to come from Buck
9.5. DrummerMan – a silver-haired smoothly, tight performance
9.6. KeyboardMan – looked like the film-maker character (‘Ed’) from one of my all-time favourite TV programmes – Northern Exposure (Offbeat Alaskan Comedy-Drama)
10. Other visuals – simple and effective lighting design, good live camera-work (projected onto 10’ screen high above the stage) – multimedia not gone mad
11. Opening REM song: ‘I Took Your Name’ (from Monster)
12. Songs that stood out: ‘Orange Crush’ (noisy), ‘The One I Love’ (sing-a-long-a-REM), ‘Everybody Hurts’ (moving), 'Electrolite' (pop-bliss), ‘Losing My Religion’ (predictable crowd reaction), and ‘Imitation of Life’ (surprising, thought I)
13. Nice touch of the evening – Stipe stepped onstage before the support band began (with venue at approx 40% capacity) - to cheerily say hello, and to introduce the young ‘uns
14. Was a good evening had? Yes. A very good evening was had. By a lot of people.

***

Emma was on decent form when I saw her on Tuesday evening, however, a tear sprang to my eye when she explained that she’d perceived in Ed a moment of shock of upon his realising how big a deal their formal splitting would be – she’d been discussing the shape (as she saw it) of the forthcoming few months. It has been a near 5-year gig for them. Other than that, the most interesting point of my couple of hours at her house was that young Alex (3) was still up when I landed. Fully pyjamaed and mid-pre-bedtime-story, he quietly listened whilst corner-of-the-eyeing me with suspicion – I made no attempt at any foolishly buoyant ‘Well-hello-there-little-fella,-how-are-y’?-I-wonder-if-I’ll-be-your-new-Daddy,-what-d’-y’-say-eh?’ type introductions. No, none of that. Instead, I sat at a safe distance - quietly listening to the story from a separate sofa, and not eyeballing either he or Emma (indirect is usually a good approach in such situations). Talking with Emma yesterday, she said there’d been an amusing moment upon getting downstairs in the morning - Alex had immediately chirped ‘Oh, where’s Shane? He’s not here.’ A simple explanation of Shane having a different house followed. Ms E suggested that the tone of the boy’s enquiry could be read as his being comfortable with the brief time spent in the presence of Shane - a good sign.

***

…FI-RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE!!! (Stipe went on to sing).