By Darren Barefoot on November 22, 2004 - 10:28am
REM is a studio band. It's notable that, in 24 years of recording, they've never released a live album. How many other long-lived rock bands can you say that about? I've seen REM live twice now, and watched plenty of live footage on television. They just don't put on a very good show.
When I see a band live, I expect a transformative experience. I want them to build upon what I hear on their albums. They should reinvent and reinterpret old songs, showcase new ones, cover other people's work and generally demonstrate some innovation and musicality. Back in August I was disappointed by Aimee Mann's show for her rote performances of studio cuts. REM wasn't quite that guilty, but they failed to add much to their studio recordings.
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By Darren Barefoot on August 24, 2004 - 11:35pm
Cross-posted from DarrenBarefoot.com.
I've been an Aimee Mann fan since her first solo album. She's a witty, arcane songwriter, has a distinctive, haunting voice and plays with a great band. I was excited, then, so see her at the Commodore.
To my surprise, it wasn't a full house. In fact, I met a friend at the show who said he'd bought his ticket's today on a 2-for-1 deal. I could hardly believe that, hearing 'deal' and 'Ticketmaster' in the same sentence. Additionally, to my surprise, the doors opened at 7:00pm. What's with that? Even the symphony starts at 8:00pm. I expected to line up in the rain when we showed up at 7:30pm, but we walked right in and got quality seats.
The opening act, the Honey Dogs, were decidedly average. Do check out their Web site, though--I like its design, and figure it's a partially inspired by the work of Frida Kahlo. Ms. Mann and the band opened with "Read Bad News".
I remarked to myself how the song sounded almost exactly like the album version. Unfortunately, this was a theme to continue throughout the main set. In the case of almost every song, Mann and her band played verbatim to the album version. The cadence, the vocals, the instrumental sections--they were all perfected copies of what you can hear on the CD. As far as I could tell, there wasn't a single bar of improvisation. In this way, it was a consummately professional show.
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