Me and REM

Man, I am excited.

On October 27th, R.E.M. will be releasing Live At The Olympia, a 39-song, two CD set containing "working rehearsals" from 2007. Taken from five nights of live "tests" at the Dublin venue and culminating in the group's 2007 Accelerate album, this is no ordinary recording. Aside from live versions from Acelerate, the majority of songs are
from 1982-1988 IRS days . In their full glory the album consists as follows

1 Living Well is the Best Revenge

2 Second Guessing

3 Letter Never Sent

4 Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance

5 Disturbance at the Heron House

6 Mr. Richards

7 Houston

8 New Test Leper

9 Cuyahoga

10 Electrolite

11 Man-Sized Wreath

12 So. Central Rain

13 On The Fly

14 Maps and Legends

15 Sitting Still

16 Driver 8

17 Horse to Water

18 I'm Gonna DJ

19 Circus Envy

20 These Days

21 Drive

22 Feeling Gravitys Pull

23 Until the Day is Done

24 Accelerate

25 Auctioneer

26 Little America

27 1,000,000

28 Disguised

29 The Worst Joke Ever

30 Welcome to the Occupation

31 Carnival of Sorts

32 Harborcoat

33 Wolves, Lower

34 I've Been High

35 Kohoutek

36 West of the Fields

37 Pretty Persuasion

38 Romance

39 Gardening at Night

My best man to be introduced me to REM in 1991. I was 20, never really into music although by then U2 were on my radar, mainly due to the Joshua Tree.

I caught a couple of snippets on TV of a rock journalist called Dave Fanning talking to REM and there studio recordings of 2 songs from their forthcoming album. One of these songs as I later found out was Losing My Religion.

I was hooked, I wore out the video tape listening to these recordings and the rest was history. 9 years later their song At My Most Beautiful was the first dance at my wedding. Better than Shiny Happy People I guess?

One of the joys of finding a band like REM was history. Discovering the 6 albums already recorded, live versions in front of 50 people,singles collections and then watching that grow before my eyes over several live concerts throughout my 20's and 30's into the largest band in the world. Accelerate was a welcome return to form,IRS years all over again. I probably have all those above versions somewhere already. It dont matter. They are now  to be safley on one recording in 5 weeks and counting.