Set: Living Well’s the Best Revenge/These Days/Begin The Begin/What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?/Pilgrimage/Hollow Man/Animal/Man-Sized Wreath/Ignoreland/The Great Beyond/Accelerate/Houston/Electrolite/The One I Love/Final Straw/Find The River/Let Me In/Walk Unafraid/Orange Crush/Horse to Water/Bad Day/I’m Gonna DJ

Encore: Supernatural Superserious/Pretty Persuasion/Losing My Religion/Fall On Me (w/ Johnny Marr)/Man On The Moon

Last night was a long time coming and brought my R.E.M. fandom full circle. My first CD purchase was Out of Time, initially for then radio smash “Losing My Religion,” later finding enjoyment throughout, and over the years, devouring everything the group put out, including the recently released Accelerate. I’m not an old school fan who’s roots and favorites date back to their earlier collection. I’ve got favorites from each of their early records, but I very much came to be an R.E.M. fan with my first purchase and solidified my love through their mid-era gems like Automatic For The People, Monster and New Adventures In Hi-Fi.

The nice long line of traffic leading into the city resulted in missing MoB favorites The National’s opening set, but we found our seats just in time to catch Modest Mouse for the first time. Having heard mixed reviews on their live set I was pleasantly surprised by the way they filled up the venue with their sound. The house lights came up, eventually went back down and the band I’d been following for seventeen years was right before me. A show of hands after a prompting from Michael Stipe revealed half of those in attendance were first timers, and for those that weren’t as familiar with their back catalog I’m sure the main set lagged with very few noticable “hits,” but for me it went above and beyond all these years of expectations.

Chicago got the tour debut of “The Great Beyond,” and following a few songs later were three songs on my short list of favorites/wishes for the evening “Electrolite,” “Find The River,” and “Let Me In.” By the time “I’m Gonna DJ” reared its head as the set closer, a song that ranks amongst one of my least favorites, I was having such a great evening that I ended up enjoying the hell out of it.

The encore united both old fans and new with their newest hit “Supernatural Superserious” and a Johnny Marr enhanced take on “Fall On Me.” The band ended the night, as appears to be standard with “Man On The Moon,” which was a good enough send off to the rest of the weekend. Over the course of the evening, R.E.M.’s music flooded me with memories that their music provided the musical soundtrack. Those memories, now forever glued to those songs, will always support my adoration for this band.

There were lots of people at the show last night, let me know what you thought! What did you think of The National and Modest Mouse? How did this show compare to other times catching R.E.M.? What were the musical highlights? Did you buy a $30 t-shirt? Which one?

Myspace: R.E.M.

Even without the Boss, Mr. Mike Ness brought quite the stellar performance Tuesday night at Chicago’s Park West. (You may or may not have heard about THIS.)

The full house of Ness and Social D fans alike seemed to thoroughly enjoy Ness and his band’s 16-song set, which entertained the masses with several numbers from 99’s Cheating at Solitaire and cover album Under the Influences. I must say I was pretty surprised at how clear and crisp Ness’ live vocal quality was, being significantly similar to that of his recorded quality. The band banged out their signature blend of alt-country, honky-tonk and rockabilly twang and it was marvelous.

Ness offered up quite the banter of crowd convos; ranging from his love of Chicago, “When you spend a day in Detroit, you realize how good you’ve got it—it’s a great city here;” to love advice, “Bad boys, you gotta get a good girl—make yourselves some changes or you’ll die alone with your dick in your hand, or even worse off, with your best friend’s dick in your hand—do something nice, open the door, thank her when she gets you a beer every once in a while;” to suggestions of playing hooky in the office, “How many of you gotta get up to work in the morning? Well since we’re here tomorrow night, take tomorrow off and the next day, hell the whole week off. If your boss says anything, you tell ‘em to call Mike Ness—I’ll tell ‘em what to do.”

Even though I wimped out and crawled into my cubicle this morning with my tail between my legs, I had no regrets as I replayed the past evening out in my head. With such legendry tracks by Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Bobby Fuller and of course, Mr. Ness himself, last night’s performance was one to remember. Anyone catch tonight’s second show? Last night? What were your thoughts?
Set List, (Well most of it anyway), after the jump . . .
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