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Thursday 27 June 2019

• R.E.M. Live in Huddersfield, 1995

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“We put a good spin on it publicly but the truth is Bill almost died”: Michael Stipe on how R.E.M. narrowly averted tragedy on the Monster tour

Drummer Bill Berry suffered a ruptured aneurysm onstage in Switzerland

The biggest tour that R.E.M. had ever embarked on, taking in arenas and stadiums round the globe, was in full flow by March 1995 when the Athens, Georgia quartet rocked up in Switzerland to headline Lausanne megadome Patinoire de Malley. But the Monster jaunt was about to brought to an abrupt halt – midway through the show, drummer and co-founder Bill Berry collapsed. The next day, he was diagnosed with a ruptured brain aneurysm. Speaking to this writer back in 2021, frontman Michael Stipe looked back on one of the most harrowing period in the alt-rock titans’ history.

“We put a good spin on it publicly but the truth is Bill almost died and he almost died more than once,” Stipe recalled. “It was absolutely terrifying. It was truly horrific. We were in the middle of a tour so we were all insanely adrenalized and the tour came to a screeching halt. We were determined to stay there by his side until he was well enough to leave the hospital and walk and talk on his own. He came through - it's truly miraculous. He also happened to have an aneurysm less than five kilometres from the best hospital in the world to have surgery for aneurysms, he was very, very lucky.”

With Berry on the mend, the band all stayed together as he recuperated and they decided their next move. “Bill just wanted to get to the point where he could perform again,” remembered Stipe. “We were, of course, supportive of that but a bit terrified because it was really drastic brain surgery that he had and you know, he looked like the Elephant Man for a while. I mean, it was really very serious surgery. The tour was a nice kind of thing to hold up, as part of his physical therapy and mental therapy, as something that creates a deadline. The doctors approved of him playing drums again and going back on tour and we gave it the necessary amount of time that it needed.”

R.E.M. were back on the road just over two months later, restarting with a headline show at the Shoreline Ampitheatre in the San Francisco Bay Area. “At the end of the show, Bill walked up out from behind the drum kit and we all hugged each other on stage,” Stipe recounted. “I think I burst into tears and cried like a baby, so relieved he made it through an entire show and he was absolutely fine. He was going to be okay.”

That tour would be a last hurrah for Berry, who left R.E.M. after the band had completed work on their next record, 1996’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi . It marked the end of an era for a group who helped to usher alternative-rock into the mainstream.

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Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleagues Ted Kessler and Chris Catchpole. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more. Radiohead was only for eight minutes but he still counts it.

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R.E.M. at The Spectrum | still from video

“The Night R.E.M. Became My Favorite Band”: Reflections on the Monster tour’s three-night stand at The Spectrum

Athens, Georgia rockers  R.E.M. were at a crossroads in 1995.

The band — Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe — had won international acclaim and mainstream success after a decade-and-a-half upward climb through the independent music scene of the 80s. Propelled by MTV and the burgeoning alternative rock radio format, their albums  Out of Time (1991) and  Automatic for the People (1992) generated massive hits like “Losing My Religion” and “Man on the Moon.” But the band also spent those early years of the decade somewhat reclusively, not touring and making only scattered public appearances.

Following the ballad-heavy introspection of  Automatic and the psychedelic orchestrations of  Time , 1994’s  Monster LP —  the band’s ninth — saw it embrace the limelight once again. Widely heralded as R.E.M.’s return to “rock,” or at least rock signifiers like amped-up guitars and blistering drumbeats commingling at a propulsive pace, it added more massive hits to the canon — “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?”, “Bang and Blame,” “Crush With Eyeliner.”

But when the band prepped for its  Monster tour, which launched in early 1995, it was very conscious of its position: these were four guys in their mid-30s who had been playing together for a over third of their lives. They had an audience hungry to see them perform and the wind of several successful releases in their sails, but their lives were also evolving in different directions — families were being started, new cities were being settled down in — and all this amid a turbulent, ever-changing industry.

“I think all of us kind of realize we’re probably never going to be in a position like this again,” Stipe said in the 1995 documentary short Rough Cut . “We’re probably never going to be this popular, and able to do a world tour on this scale. And I’m looking forward to it! I’m going to have a ball.”

This was the R.E.M. that came to Philadelphia for not one, not two, but three headlining nights at The Spectrum in South Philadelphia on October 12th through the 14th of 1995.

These shows are, to rock fans who today are in their mid- to late-30s, somewhat legendary; newcomers saw them for the first time on this tour. Enthusiasts saw all three nights — and the band played to the devotees with varying setlists leaning heavy on  Monster and newer-than-the-new-album tunes, stuff that would make up 1996’s  New Adventures In Hi-Fi . Mega-fans even followed them across the country, show-to-show. And thanks to Philly videographer Markit Aneight, video of all three Spectrum performances is on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, beginning with the October 12th show.

I asked Joe DeCarolis — bassist for Philly bands  Hurry  and  Psychic Teens , and a huge fan of R.E.M. — to reflect on being in the audience during the band’s three-night stand. Here’s what he had to say:

Seeing R.E.M. at the Spectrum on 10/13/95 changed everything I thought about music. They did so many things that young me never thought a band selling out arenas might do. I remember hearing or reading interviews where they plainly stated that this would not be a greatest hits tour; they would be playing mostly Monster material and songs written while on tour. That night, I found that the energy of a set like that tops any nostalgia set. All of my favorite shows since then have been mostly new material. Hearing a new song for the first time in a live setting is maybe the most exciting moment of any show for me. That night, “Revolution” left a huge impact on me. Of course, that one wouldn’t even make the next record. They also played “Binky the Doormat”, “Undertow”, and “Departure”, and all of a sudden I COULD NOT WAIT for their next album. (“The Wake-Up Bomb” was already really familiar to me as I’d taped their MTV awards performance of the song and watched it endlessly.) Not that I was totally immune to wanting to hear the old songs – since I wasn’t expecting any, it made the appearance of “So. Central Rain” in the encore a huge surprise. And the louder live arrangement of “Man on the Moon” gave me a whole new appreciation for a song I already loved. Just like seeing new songs, alternate arrangements became another favorite moment of shows for me. It’s what keeps me going to see some bands over and over again (and hoarding live recordings).

As Joe continues, in addition to giving him a new perspective on the live music experience, it also give him a new perspective on R.E.M. He described the show to me as “the night they became my favorite band”:

I was a pretty big R.E.M. fan before the show, but I hadn’t dug TOO deeply into the back catalog. I had Automatic , Monster , Eponymous , and my good friend Adrian (currently in the excellent band Readership!) who knew all the material (and b-sides) much better than me. We’d hang out and play guitar and geek out over musical minutiae. He got tickets to this show for his birthday and offered one to me. We talked about what the set list might be like, what we thought they’d DEFINITELY play, what seemed unlikely but possible, and the absolute uncertainty we’d get to hear “Radio Free Europe” live. The flow of the set was perfect. The one-two punch of “I Took Your Name” into “What’s the Frequency Kenneth?” worked as a mission statement for the show and electrified the room. They knew exactly when to work in the slower songs. “Star 69” ended the main set before they came back to a wash of noise and feedback for “Let Me In.” I liked noise in my pop songs before this, but I’d never heard anything like the dense saturation of this. It shook the seat. I’d never FELT noise like this. A band that I’d always considered a “mostly quiet” band (despite the publicized return to rock of Monster ) owned that stage with so much passion and energy that it completely changed my view of them. I went into that show as a fan and left obsessed. I’d seen a few shows before this, but none that transformed my idea of a band. It set the bar for basically every show I’ve ever seen since.

Watch the October 13th show below.

Philly writer M.J. Fine  is easily the biggest R.E.M. fan I know, and spent the summer of 1995 following the band around the country from city to city on a Greyhound bus. She shared these thoughts on R.E.M.’s arrival at The Spectrum that fall — the 19th, 20th and 21st shows she saw on the Monster tour, caught during her sophomore year at American University in Washington, D.C.

On Thursday, I took the train from D.C. — where I was trying to find the balance between attending my sophomore-year classes, practically living at the student-run radio station and following my favorite band — and met up with one of my tour buddies just in time for the show. I caught enough of Grant Lee Buffalo to confirm that they weren’t as dull as Radiohead, who’d put me to sleep with their opening set in Hershey in September, but also that I’d never like them as much as Luscious Jackson, who’d won me over with their sunny grooves in June. On Friday, I brought my best friend and my dad, who seemed to enjoy themselves. And on Saturday, my brother and I met up with my tour buddy on the early side in hopes of hearing R.E.M. soundcheck some of the songs they were working on for what would become  New Adventures in Hi-Fi , but found only Grant Lee Buffalo. As for the shows themselves, the first night seemed rote; the second had more energy, with better banter and a surprise cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.” Mostly, I was glad that Natalie Merchant, a longtime friend of the band and my own personal nemesis, remained in Upper Darby, where she was playing the Tower — and stayed away from the stage at the Spectrum. The third night was the best of the run, a confluence of great seats, a good audience and smooth moves from Michael Stipe, who also smuggled a snippet of Tori Amos’ “Winter” into the encore. But while I had a fine time at the shows and enjoyed spending a weekend in my own bedroom at a time when there was too much drama in the dorm, I can’t say that R.E.M. were at their best in my hometown. Other cities got warmer crowds, wittier repartee and greater setlist variation. Compare their run at the Spectrum, where 22 songs were played all three nights and only three originals didn’t repeat at all (“Try Not to Breathe” on Thursday; “Welcome to the Occupation” and “So. Central Rain” on Friday), with their three-night stand at Madison Square Garden, where a dozen songs rewarded the most devoted fans (“Drive,” “Me in Honey,” “I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” and “Star Me Kitten” on Night One; “Circus Envy,” “Welcome to the Occupation,” “Half a World Away,” “Orange Crush” and “So. Central Rain” on Night Two; and “Disturbance at the Heron House,” “You” and “Near Wild Heaven” on Night Three).

Fine also kept a meticulous tour journal, which she shared excerpts from — you can find those below this video for the October 14th Spectrum show. Were you at any of these shows? Were you at all of these shows? Did you too follow the band from city to city during the summer and fall of 1995? Leave your own memories of them in the comments.

Friday, 10/13/95 1:25 a.m.

Funny to be on tour  and  home. Amtrak to Philly … Read  Understanding Mass Media  and slept. Train arrived about 20 minutes late. Commuter train to Suburban Station, Broad Street Line to Pattison.

Good seat — row 11, Peter’s side on the floor. Aisle again. Grant Lee Buffalo had already started when I got to my seat. Not bad, but not my thing.

R.E.M. didn’t seem to get into it until second half. Peter’s jumping more these days. Some films are new this leg. Mike wore black Nudie suit, Bill wore black T-shirt, black jeans, black baseball cap, Peter wore black jacket, black shirt, black pants. Michael wore black jacket over striped button-down shirt over small multi-(drab)-colored stretch shirt over blue T-shirt with the words “Losers Are Winners.”

Michael asked again for people to throw off their clothes, and many did. Peter seemed annoyed by this; Scott (in yellow, black and white jacket) seemed amused. Nathan wore red jeans and black T-shirt; Lindros #88 Flyers jersey during encore. Young people next to me, smoking and requesting old songs.

Setlist: “Pop Song 89,” “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” Crush with Eyeliner,” “Drive,” “Try Not to Breathe,” “The Wake-Up Bomb,” “Binky the Doormat,” “Losing My Religion,” “Bang and Blame,” “Undertow,” “Strange Currencies,” “Revolution,” “Tongue,” “Man on the Moon,” “Country Feedback,” “The One I Love,” “Orange Crush,” “Get Up,” “Star 69.” Encore: “Let Me In,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Hot Java,” “Begin the Begin,” “Departure,” “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

Aside from “Hot Java,” the only difference between setlist tonight and last show I saw was substitution of “Begin the Begin” for “So.  Central Rain.” They seem to be in a rut. Michael asked audience by a show of hands how many would be at tomorrow night’s show. Lots of hands raised. Maybe that’ll shake them up.

Setlist and ticket stubs | photo courtesy of M.J. Fine

 Saturday, 10/14/95 2:20 a.m.

… Disappointed that seats were two rows in front of soundboard, rather than six rows from stage. … Highlight: unplanned cover of “Wicked Game.” I saw the soundboard’s setlists (one with list of films, one with list of instruments), and “Wicked Game” was not listed.

Michael was mildly talkative. Mike wore purple Nudie suit. Bill wore all black, as did Peter. Michael wore black jacket over dark T-shirt over orange T-shirt. Scott wore black T-shirt; maroon Radiohead shirt during encore. Nathan wore black T-shirt and red jeans.

A better show than last night. Someone in audience had a sign saying “Chicago-Detroit-New York-Philadelphia. Thanks Mike Mills for the drumstick. See you in Washington” and Michael had Mike say, “You’re welcome.”

Setlist: “I Took Your Name,” “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” “Crush with Eyeliner,” “Welcome to the Occupation,” “The Wake-Up Bomb,” “Binky the Doormat,” “Losing My Religion,” “Begin the Begin,” “Undertow,” “Bang and Blame,” “Strange Currencies,” “Revolution,” “Tongue,” “Man on the Moon,” “Country Feedback,” “The One I Love,” “Pop Song 89,” “Get Up,” Star 69.” Encore: “Let Me In,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Hot Java,” “Wicked Game,” “So. Central Rain,” “Departure,” “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

Relieved that Natalie Merchant, at the Tower Theater tonight, didn’t show up. …

Sunday, 10/15/95 3:25 a.m.

… Walked in rain to train station; took 1:49 to Suburban Station, Broad Street Line to Pattison. … Hung around for hours. … Heard Grant Lee Buffalo’s short soundcheck, but it seems R.E.M. didn’t soundcheck. Talked to two girls who’d been to all three Philly shows. … Into building at 7 p.m. …

I sat in row 5, between Mike and Michael. People on right arrived after R.E.M. began. People on left were older fans who’ve seen many shows. Good performance tonight, very enjoyable. I held my Patti Smith T-shirt up at end of “Everybody Hurts” and Michael sort of smiled at it.

Mike wore white Nudie suit. Peter wore pink ruffled button-down shirt. Bill wore black jeans, black hat, black T-shirt. Michael wore black jacket over orange windbreaker with “ORANGE” written on back over stretch shirt over orange T-shirt, which he lifted up a lot. His Fruit of the Looms showed. Scott wore a Sleeper shirt; Nathan wore black T-shirt with pinstriped pants.

Highlight: a snippet of Tori Amos’ “Winter” before “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” in place of something about chocolate cake last night.

Setlist: “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?,” “Crush with Eyeliner,” “Drive,” “I Took Your Name,” “The Wake-Up Bomb,” “Binky the Doormat,” “Losing My Religion,” “Bang and Blame,” “Undertow,” “Begin the Begin,” “Strange Currencies,” “Revolution,” “Tongue,” “Man on the Moon,” “Country Feedback,” “The One I Love,” “Orange Crush,” “Get Up,” “Star 69.” Encore: “Let Me In,” “Everybody Hurts,” “Hot Java,” “Pop Song 89,” “Departure,” “Winter”/”It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” My brother got a setlist from the soundboard.

Stipe mentioned Lance Bangs for the third night in a row.

How R.E.M.’s ‘Monster’ Signaled The End Of Alternative Rock

Here’s a book pitch: A sequel to Michael Azerrad’s venerable Our Band Could Be Your Life, in which the story of American indie rock’s roots in the ’80s continues by delving into the boom and bust of ’90s alternative rock.

One of the most fascinating chapters in this hypothetical tome would be about R.E.M., a subject of the original Our Band Could Be Your Life, who went from being an early pioneer of the so-called “Amerindie” scene to one of the most popular bands in the world after they signed with Warner Bros. in 1988. After concluding a successful though grueling marathon tour in support of their major-label LP, Green, R.E.M. opted to stay home for the next several years and create their lushest and most orchestrated music .

Only The Beatles had ever previously dared to essentially take themselves out of the public eye at the height of their fame, in order to focus on songwriting and honing their craft as record-makers. But with 1991’s Out Of Time and 1992’s Automatic For The People, R.E.M. somehow managed to become even more popular, selling more than eight million records combined as their artfully shot videos for folk-rock smashes like “Losing My Religion” and “Man On The Moon” played in constant rotation on MTV.

At a time when social media keeps pop stars in our faces at all times, R.E.M.’s ability to grow its audience while otherwise maintaining radio silence remains an unprecedented feat that likely won’t be duplicated. Looking back on this era more than 25 years later, R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck recalls feeling safely insulated from the ramifications of the band’s fame in the early ’90s.

“I lived in Mexico for six months after Automatic . And I was not talking to anybody, I was just hanging out. So, yeah, it wasn’t a big part of my life,” he said when reached via phone last week. “I was going through a particularly mobile two years of my life there. I had a car and a box of cassettes I listened to, and a leather jacket. And I just kind of moved around from place to place.”

Buck made himself available for a rare interview because he was promoting a new boxed set commemorating the 25th anniversary of R.E.M.’s ninth album, Monster, out today. Released in the fall of 1994, Monster proved to be the most controversial album R.E.M. ever made, as noisy, heavy-riffing, cynical, and dark as the two previous records were melodic, warm, commercial, and effervescent. The first single, “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?,” set the album’s tone — over Buck’s gut-level, buzzsaw guitar riff, singer Michael Stipe expressed disdain for the media while affecting an ironic remove from the horror-show unfolding before him on multiple screens.

“I never understood, don’t f*ck with me, uh-huh,” he sings, with a put-upon, in-character disaffection that recalled U2’s Achtung Baby . (Though he was also no doubt also drawing on his personal angst over persistent rumors in the early ’90s that he had contracted HIV.) Like U2, R.E.M. was using satire to help ease its transition from earnest ’80s alt band to ’90s stadium rockers.

For Buck, Monster represents “a time in all of our lives that was really crazy,” when R.E.M. decided to leave the safety of their private lives behind and embrace their strange new status in the outside world.

“We had just become the fourth-biggest band in the world without really trying,” Buck said with a characteristic sardonic twinkle. “ Monster is kind of confronting that.”

Of course, many people didn’t get it, and Monster stands today as the most divisive album in the band’s vaunted catalogue. The new boxed set attempts to put the album in a different light, with a battery of outtakes, a complete concert from the Monster tour, and a new remix by Scott Litt that lifts Stipe’s vocals out of the murk, highlighting the album’s penetrating character studies of outsider creeps desperate for attention and validation. While the redux doesn’t supplant the original record, it does underline Monster ‘s themes more definitively. When Stipe sings, in the mechanized death-disco track “King Of Comedy,” that he’s “not commodity,” it hits with greater clarity.

Upon its release, Monster debuted at No. 1 in the US and UK, and like Out Of Time and Automatic For The People, it went quadruple platinum stateside. While initial reviews were positive, including a four-and-a-half-stars rave from Rolling Stone , the album nevertheless acquired a sour reputation among fans and critics.

Many regard Monster as the end of R.E.M.’s golden era. The distinctive red-orange cover itself became a kind of in-joke, as it became a fixture at used-CD stores from coast to coast, back when used-CD stores were still a thing. It made it easy to regard Monster as a symbol of alt-rock’s rise and fall, a bloated superstar record that was “too big too fail” in the moment and then quickly discarded in the second half of the decade as rap-rock and teen pop took over.

As someone who bought Monster the week it came out and has continued to love it for the past quarter-century, I never thought this was fair. For starters, Monster has more hits than many people remember — beyond “Kenneth,” there are future concert staples like “Strange Currencies,” “Circus Envy,” “Crush With Eyeliner,” and “Star 69.” (Those first two tracks were used brilliantly in this year’s underrated mind-bending L.A. noir, Under The Silver Lake. ) But beyond the tunefulness of Monster is the record’s fascinating meta quality. It’s an arena-rock record that’s about arena rock, in which Stipe’s lyrics deal directly with how media iconography distorts and cheapens reality, set to music that both pays homage to hard rock and glam while also playing up the bombastic silliness of those genres.

That element of R.E.M.’s Monster era comes through on the live concert recording included in the boxed set, which is culled from the band’s performance in Chicago on June 3, 1995. (Coincidentally, I saw my first and only R.E.M. concert two shows prior, in Milwaukee.) The band sounds robust and blustery, and Stipe’s between-song patter is hilariously deadpan if also inscrutable, like when he introduces “Losing My Religion” as a cover of an old hit by ’70s soft-rock singer B.J. Thomas.

In that way, Monster didn’t merely signal the end of alt-rock’s salad days, it might have even precipitated it. Clearly, R.E.M. wasn’t interested in merely perpetuating their hit-making formula from Out Of Time and Automatic . Even at the time, Monster felt like a line in the sand that fair-weather fans drawn in by “Shiny Happy People” probably weren’t going to cross.

I would liken Monster to Neil Young’s “ditch” records from the early ’70s, when he took a decisive turn toward noise and provocation in the wake of his massive success with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and his 1972 solo album Harvest. In that equation, Automatic For The People is R.E.M.’s Harvest, which would make Monster the band’s Time Fades Away, and 1996’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi — an exhausted, evocative travelogue written and recorded on the Monster tour that’s a personal favorite of Stipe’s and Buck’s — their Tonight’s The Tonight.

When I mentioned this analogy to Buck, he was flattered – he naturally loves Time Fades Away and Tonight’s The Night — though he denies that R.E.M.’s motivations were purely reactionary.

“I think one of the things that we were subconsciously thinking was, it’s better not to be pinned down. Like, there’s those guys who do that ,” he said. “ Automatic ‘s a great record, but you don’t want to make the same record twice and have the second one be less good or just wear out your welcome.”

To elaborate on this point, Buck made a surprising pivot to … Beyoncé. “I think with popularity, you should use it to try things. Beyoncé’s a great example of that,” he said. “She’s really pushing the boundaries in every way. Where she could still be doing Destiny’s Child, playing Vegas six nights a week.”

The road to Monster goes back to the start of 1993, when R.E.M. held a band summit in which they mapped out their next few years. The centerpiece was a massive world tour of sheds and stadiums scheduled many months in advance. Buck also envisioned a record that R.E.M. would write and record while on the road, the band’s 10th. In the meantime, however, they had to make their ninth LP.

As that record took shape, R.E.M. focused on becoming a road-ready unit again. Buck, who had pushed the band to strip down and eschew electric guitars on the previous two albums, was now looking to the swaggering punk records he loved as a teenager, like The Stooges’ Fun House , for inspiration . Lots of simple riffs with minimal nuance. (“There must be minor chords on that record but I don’t remember any,” he says.) In Atlanta, they rented a soundstage and performed their new songs every day as they would a concert set.

But as work on Monster wore on, they were stressed by the pressure of completing the album in time for the upcoming tour. And then there was the natural drift that occurs when the members of very rich rock band no longer move in the same social circles. Both factors made the making of Monster a fraught process.

“In the ’80s, the only thing we did was make music and write songs. And it just seemed like we would write 12 songs and that would be the album. In the ’90s it kind of changed,” Buck reflected. “We had more time to ourselves, so we were writing a ton of stuff. Which means Michael didn’t finish it all. So he would be presented with 30 pieces of music rather than 12. And it made the process a little longer.”

I then bought up a Rolling Stone article I remembered reading as an anxious 17-year-old R.E.M. fanatic, which suggested that R.E.M. came close to breaking up during the Monster sessions. Was that true? “We basically almost broke up a whole bunch of times, I think all bands do, you know?” he countered. “It’s hard to go from being a young person who knows exactly what’s right to being like an older person who realizes you have to deal with people who think they are absolutely right, too. I can’t tell you how many arguments we’ve had about some pointless little thing and then six months later I’m listening to it and I can’t remember which side of the argument I was on.

“You know, it got tough at the end,” he added. “But instead of canceling the tour and going off into outer space, we just kind of did it, and then made one of our favorite records.”

Launched on January 13, 1995 in Perth, Australia, the 10-month Monster tour proved to be an even bigger turning point for R.E.M. than the album. Spanning 135 shows and multiple continents, the tour was infamously marred by health problems for Stipe, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry, who collapsed from a brain aneurysm that March in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Beyond these personal calamities, the members of R.E.M. also faced the weirdness of rock superstardom head-on.

“It was the first and only time honestly where people were chasing us around and screaming at us in the streets,” Buck said. “We would get to our hotel and there’d be 300 people waiting outside. And you think, ‘What the f*ck? What is this all about?’ And then Bill almost died in my arms. I still have nightmares about that. All I remember is that it was crazy.”

When R.E.M. broke up in 2011, all their remaining members — Berry exited the band in 1997 — seemed determined to leave their big-time arena-rock past behind, focusing instead on idiosyncratic projects far outside the mainstream. Buck has been the most outspoken about his dislike of the music business . When I suggested that this aversion might have originated during the Monster period, Buck gently pushed back.

“I had to listen to all this sh*t in the last six months: The demos, the album itself, the remix, the live shows. And it’s way more consistent than I originally thought. It’s a cool-sounding record, you know?” he said. “It may not be the first record I’d give to someone that didn’t know what we were all about, but I’m actually liking it better than I liked it at the time.

“It reminds me a little bit of Fables Of The Reconstruction,” he added, “where I don’t think any of us were super happy with the mixes or anything. And then years later you realize, well, it’s its own entity. We couldn’t see the mistakes or failures or whatever. That is just what it is.”

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R.E.M.'s Plagued Monster Tour Revisited in Clip From Documentary R.E.M. by MTV

R.E.M. have shared a five-minute clip from R.E.M. by MTV , a new documentary that traces the band's history concurrent to the rise of MTV. The documentary is included in a  six-DVD retrospective, REMTV ,  chronicling R.E.M.'s performance history on MTV. Out November 24, it also includes R.E.M.'s "MTV Unplugged" and "VH1 Storytellers" performances, award show footage, and live MTV clips from 1995 to 2008. Read more details about the box set  here .

In the clip, which can be watched below via Pitchfork.tv , the band members discuss the inexplicable string of health issues that arose during their Monster tour in the mid-'90s. In quick succession, Bill Berry suffered a brain aneurysm, Mike Mills had an abdominal operation, and Michael Stipe required surgery for a hernia. Among the vintage "MTV News" footage is an amazing clip of Stipe, wearing an inexplicable du-rag, showing off his surgery scar to Tabitha Soren.

The documentary will screen on VH1 Classic and Palladia tomorrow, November 22.

Read Ryan Dombal's interview with R.E.M. after they announced their 2011 breakup, and read our rundown of R.E.M.'s best (and weirdest) rarities .

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• July 23, 1995 Setlist

R.E.M. Setlist at Cardiff Arms Park, Cardiff, Wales

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• What's the Frequency, Kenneth? Play Video
• Crush With Eyeliner Play Video
• Drive Play Video
• Turn You Inside-Out Play Video
• Try Not to Breathe Play Video
• Bang and Blame Play Video
• Undertow Play Video
• Welcome to the Occupation Play Video
• I Took Your Name Play Video
• Strange Currencies Play Video
• Revolution Play Video
• Tongue Play Video
• Man on the Moon Play Video
• Country Feedback Play Video
• Half a World Away Play Video
• Losing My Religion Play Video
• Pop Song 89 Play Video
• Finest Worksong Play Video
• Get Up Play Video
• Star 69 Play Video
• Let Me In Play Video
• Everybody Hurts Play Video
• So. Central Rain Play Video
• Departure Play Video
• It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) Play Video

Edits and Comments

10 activities (last edit by ExecutiveChimp , 15 Oct 2016, 16:53 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Bang and Blame
• Crush With Eyeliner
• I Took Your Name
• Strange Currencies
• What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
• Everybody Hurts
• Man on the Moon
• Try Not to Breathe
• Finest Worksong
• It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)
• Welcome to the Occupation
• Pop Song 89
• Turn You Inside-Out
• Country Feedback
• Half a World Away
• Losing My Religion
• So. Central Rain

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Were you there? The Beautiful South, Cast and the Lightning Seeds rock the McAlpine in 1997

We look back to the music extravaganza in July 1997 - were you one of the 35,000-strong crowd?

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It was a music extravaganza that saw 35,000 Britpop fans flock to the Alfred McAlpine Stadium on July 12, 1997.

The Beautiful South, Cast and the Lightning Seeds formed a not-to-be-missed line-up as part of the South Meets North tour of the ninties.

For Beautiful South drummer Dave Stead the gig was a homecoming - he is originally from Huddersfield and his family still live in the town.

We've gone into the archives to take a look back at the show that had the crowd dancing in the aisles.

Can you spot yourself in the crowd? Click below to view our picture gallery

Examiner reporter Brigid Walsh joined the audience for the gig.

"The Beautiful South made it a beautiful north on Saturday night with a polished performance at the McAlpine Stadium," she wrote.

"Playing to a capacity crowd, lead singer Paul Heaton and the band took the audience on a trip down memory lane with songs dating from the band's early days - when female vocalist Jacqueline Abbot was probably still singing in friends' back gardens - right up to their most recent chart-topping album."

Brigid's review reports long queues for the bar and 250 cases of dehydration and exhaustion and headaches - but the complaints weren't enough to stop fans from dancing in the aisles, enjoying Mexican waves and singing along.

She said: "Paul, looking a bit heavier the jowls than last time he came to Huddersfield supporting REM, seemed to be in good spirits doing some entertaining dancing on stage."

Paul also tossed bouquets of flowers into the crowd during This Guy's in Love With You   by Bert Bacharach, aided by the London Gospel Community Choir.

And the show, featuring Angelica and Teenage Fan Club as well as Cast and the Lightning Seeds, ended literally with a bang as a firework display soared from the tops of the stage rigging.

Two years earlier, REM rocked the McAlpine when it's Monster Tour came to Huddersfield - with the Beautiful South supporting!

Were you there? Click here for pictures of the bumper gig in 1995.

Can you spot yourself in the REM crowd? Click here for our picture gallery and review of the show.

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