Live At The Olympia (2 Cd Set) [Live]

It is hard to describe this. I thought I had witnessed REM come and go, from the fresh Murmur to the turbo charged Accelerate via some of the best albums ever recorded. And then this, the concert in my mind that I always wanted to hear. It is simply stunning.

This is R.E.M. in excelsis. The songs - and so many songs, 39 in all - roar and purr. Songs last played live in 1984 return to the stage, new songs are born in front of your ears, and this is R.E.M at their most artistically exciting. New songs and old sit together, adding new textures, context, and meaning to each other. And thankfully. R.E.M are free of the weight of expectation to explore.

Over five nights in Dublin, R.E.M broke the mould of playing live to 'roadtest' new material and exhume old, lesser known songs in what they called 'live rehearsals'. Stripped of the stadium moves, huge video screens, and the need to play The Big Hits, R.E.M. Also slimmed down their lineup to the five-man-configuration of the late Eighties, ditched all the big numbers, played songs live for the first time in a quarter century if ever, and premiered eleven new numbers. Featuring every song played over the five shows, "Live At The Olympia" is one of the rarest live albums : it has an artistically valid reason to exist. At 39 songs and 150 minutes it's not for the faint of heart, nor any of you in a hurry. There's no sign of "Man On The Moon", "Losing My Religion", "The Great Beyond", "Whats The Frequency Kenneth", "Imitation Of Life", "The One I Love", "It's The End of The World As We Know It", or "Everybody Hurts".

In the context of this, the record works because it documents an almost complete live rendition of last years brilliant "Accelerate" album (thankfully without all the distorted effects, so you can hear the songs and not the fuzz) : and not only this, but the 11 new songs on this are in embryonic stages, with different melodies, titles, and ideas : here some fall out fully formed - the charging "Living Well Is The Best Revenge", the grand "Man Sized Wreath" and the beautiful, as-good-as-anything-they've ever done "On The Fly".

There's also a new context for these new songs. Instead of trying to recreate past glories by hollow imitation, this is R.E.M. stepping out of their 'comfort zone', ditching the armour and the egojacket of stadium shows and big hits, and exhuming songs such as "Wolves, Lower", "West of The Fields","Circus Envy", and "Romance". The songs have never sounded better. "I've Been High" appears live for the first time in an age, this time as a gentle acoustic strum instead of a piece of mogadon semi-bleepy electronica. And it sounds beautiful.

By setting the new songs in the same frames as the old, both material new and old can be appreciated differently, the line between them clearly drawn, and also a thematic union, whereby it can clearly be seen that R.E.M, at least for a while, were trapped by the gulf between expectation and expression, between the desire to please, and the desire to explore, and here, this is R.E.M at its rawest, most honest - no Elvis moves, no studied stagecraft. Here it is, charmingly made of warts, bum notes and all : false starts, wonky solos, fudged endings for unrehearsed songs, forgotten words, laughs, misplaced cues, and improvised odd, silly, and funny dialogues that bookends each song : akin to a volumnous version of VH-1's "Storytellers" where R.E.M are free. Bono's in the audience, and if you listen carefully you can hear him heckle the band at one point.

With age comes hypocrisy.

But not only that, comes the sense, not of mellowing out, but of becoming emboldened, entrenched, more certain. After the last "live" record, as prosaic as its title, yet also a keen and enjoyable resetting of the anaemic, jaundiced material that the tour was due to showcase, comes this : "Live At The Olympia" is a far better record, and far more appealing.

There is little overlap from 2007's "Live" package : just 3 songs out of the 39 appeared on the previous live set. This is essential listening.

Of course, for most casual fans, these nights would be a nightmare : no sign of slick stagecraft, nor the endless string of hits you might expect. Unless you own all of R.E.M's albums, you may very well be lost - or surprised - by the sheer wealth of material here, how many great songs they made that sit on albums and are rarely seen or heard in public, by how vital these songs are, and also, by how good they sound now, played now, by middle aged men.

For inside each of the men is also the boy, and inside the boy the child : the river of time runs through it, and whilst these songs may be out of time, they are not monsters. It's as if everyone is rediscovering these songs - R.E.M included. And what joy it is to hear R.E.M sounding as keen and aware as they did in 1983. Of course, not everyone from then is here now : Bill Berry having retired, but supplemented admirably by the more-than-capable Bill Rieflin who, it seems, has become as adept and perfect a choice as anyone could imagine.

I could warble on for chapters about how good this record is. It is not perfect - for it does not reflect the setlists played by the band, nor does it sound like a show in the way the songs travel narratively between each other. And the 59 minute DVD is a frustrating cut n paste of degraded, fuzzy, black and white footage which features only a handful of songs and none of them completely. It is without doubt the most dull DVD I have seen in years with no rewatchability at all and isn't necessarily worth paying any extra for.

However, of the record itself.. suffice to say it is a brilliant, stunningly good live record that documents faithfully an artistic highpoint of R.E.M's creativity, and breathe new fresh life into undeservedly forgotten songs. If you ever liked R.E.M., ever wanted to like R.E.M., or were ever tempted with an entry point into their work, this is the way. Step inside.

Many, including the band themselves, felt R.E.M. had lost their mojo after 2004's Around The Sun. This was the beginning of their quest to get it back: a five day residency of "rehearsals" at the Dublin Olympia to roadtest new material and, as a reward for the audience (and a test of the band's mettle), a return to old classics rarely played in their typical live sets.

This set features every song played over the residency. It proves an intriguing insite into songs that would end up on Accelerate: the likes of Houston, Living Well Is The Best Revenge and Mr Richards seemed very complete. The merits of Man-Sized Wreath were debated on stage by Stipe and Mills (Stipe: This next new song will not be on the next record. - Ironic as I've heard it's now one of his favourites), Disguised was a very embrionic version of what would become Supernatural Superserious, whereas On The Fly and Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance never made it to the record (though I thought the latter sounded like it had a lot to offer).

The rest of the set reads like an alternative Best Of collection: Kohoutek (Peter Buck whispers to Stipe beforehand "We should apologise before this, this is going to be a mess"), So. Central Rain , Electrolite and Gardening At Night to name but a few, all sounded excellent. Long forgotten IRS era cutting Romance even got a play. Heck, they did a version of The Worst Joke Ever and even that sounded brilliant (on Around The Sun it just sounded dull).

The real little gems that make this album are the little errors the band make on occasion (hey they warn you from the off "This is not a show!") and the audience interaction. The false start to Disturbance At The Heron House, being heckled by someone who I'm assuming is Bono before I've Been High, Stipe being unable to contain his laughter performing Romance, forgetting which verse of Drive he was up to and his little monologues about lyrics ("They are what they are, I wrote them and I don't know what they are!") and how the internet gets them wrong.
The exchanges with audinece members after Letter Never Sent and Man-Sized Wreath are hilarious, but I'll leave the detail out so not to spoil these moments for everyone.

This set really is just a treat, and a must for any R.E.M. fan.