By Cat Mantione Holmes 08.31.99 Athens Daily News R.E.M. instantly brought the crowd of roughly 6,000 people at Chastain Park to its feet Sunday night with the rocker ”Lotus” from the band’s latest album ”Up” and kept fans on the edge of their seats all night long. On a stage bristling with Dada-esque candy-colored neon [...]
By Brian Hiatt 08.30.99 Sonicnet The nation’s largest police group has added David Byrne, Sting, Michael Stipe and Chumbawamba to its boycott list, based on those artists’ support of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Fraternal Order of Police will post the list on its website (www.grandlodgefop.org) later this week, FOP legislative assistant Tim Richardson said [...]
08.30.99 Launch It was a reunion of sorts Sunday night (Aug. 29) when former R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry walked onstage to embrace his former bandmates during the first show of the band’s three-night stand at the Chastain Park Amphitheatre in Atlanta. The show marked R.E.M.’s first date in Georgia since the drummer announced that he [...]
By Miriam Longino 08.29.99 Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Whatever preconceived notions people have about us, I hope they will be surprised. We thrive on contradiction. We all do, as human beings. We as a band personify that.” – R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe “I see R.E.M. right now as a band that is still trying to discover what [...]
By Miriam Longino 08.29.99 Atlanta Journal-Constitution R.E.M. could have taken the easy route. Boxed set. Bloated, $75-a-ticket greatest hits tour. A line of ties at Nordstrom. But nearly two decades after emerging from Athens as the Next Great Thing, and two years into one whopper of a midlife crisis, the band has apparently made a [...]
By Miriam Longino 08.29.99 Atlanta Journal-Constitution What: R.E.M. in concert. 8 p.m. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Sold out. Chastain Park Amphitheatre, 4469 Stella Drive N.W. The stage: Compared to the pyrotechnics of monster-arena shows, R.E.M.’s look is low-key but highly effective. Hanging over the stage is a curtain of scaffolding containing dozens of quirky, neon [...]
By Gene Stout 08.27.99 Seattle Post-Intelligencer With drummer Bill Berry now retired to his farm in Georgia, the remaining core members of R.E.M. — Peter Buck, Michael Stipe and Mike Mills — are back on the road with a new crop of support musicians. Replacing Berry on drums for the alternative-rock supergroup’s first U.S. tour [...]
By David Bill 08.27.99 Athens Daily News With Athens-based rock band R.E.M. heading into Atlanta for three shows beginning Sunday, lead singer Michael Stipe said Thursday that he’s really looking forward to playing close to home. Stipe, speaking from Chapel Hill, N.C., (the band will perform in Raleigh tonight) said the tour is going great. [...]
By Matthew Hilburn 08.26.99 Live Daily R.E.M. made a triumphant return to the Midwest on Aug. 19, playing to an excited but not sold out Riverport Amphitheater in St. Louis, Mo. It was the sixth stop on the U.S. leg of the ‘A Carnival of Sorts’ tour. From the clean sound and the varied song [...]
By Jane Stevenson 08.25.99 Toronto Sun R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe downplayed his band’s stage setup last week during an interview with The Toronto Sun. “We’re not staging Cats,” he insisted with a laugh. But make no mistake. The veteran Georgian band’s first tour in four years, in support of their latest album, Up, is a [...]