REM @ Old Trafford (Lancashire County Cricket Club) 24th August

[Mister Spong]

The Venue 6/10

As a venue, LCCC isn't bad. The cricket pitch is a better shape than the football pitch of the City Ground where we saw REM last time and the curves of the stadium improves the acoustics tremendously. Couple of pointers for the organisers though:

1) Don't put the stage somewhere that is going to be difficult to view for the first hour and a half because the sun is setting above it.

2) Don't put one or two food concession stands and a beer tent to the left of the stage which means that anybody wanting to use them has to get by the inevitable crush at the front of all the people that want to have a good bop.

3) Having dropped a bollock in 2 above, DO make sure that the 10+ food stands that you've got outside the the back entrance to the ground are advertised as such so that the 90% of the crowd that have come through the main entrance and haven't seen them know that they are there - reduces queues and everybody is a winner. Most people didn't realise that they were there until people left at the end of the gig at which point they then started doing a roaring business of people that couldn't be bothered to queue during the gig.

4) A guideline that you can't serve drinks in bottles to people is a good one, but when presented with a couple - one of whom is in a wheelchair and can't grip bottles properly and the other who is blind and gets around by holding the back of his wife's electric wheelchair as she navigates is an opportunity to earn some easy brownie points and make somebody's life easier. Don't be fupping Nazis over it.

Prices in the stadium varied from the not too bad (£2 for a pint beaker of soft drink) to the hefty (£3.30 for a 330ml bottle of beer emptied into a beaker) to the insane (£6 for a chicken baguette). Didn't check out the merchandise but suspect it was par for the course. LCCC is a fantastic stadium to get to - it's within easy phlegming distance of the Metro step, but getting away from it with thousands of other people isn't because they all want to catch the Metro back as well! In the end we walked about a quarter of a mile and paid over the odds for a cab which took us back to the hotel. Expensive, but worth it. Oh and of course there weren't enough toilets. Actually it might not have been the fleecing I was initially thinking - it was 11pm on a Sunday night.

Guillemots 4/10

REM don't give out support slots to anyone. The Zutons got one of the two slots at The City Ground and took full advantage as they took the crowd apart with their own unique brand of insanity and it's safe to say that Guillemots had the potential to do the same. Their league of nations make up, their kicking tunes and the originality of the sound gave them a chance to showcase their talents to a couple of thousand people (unsurprisingly, arriving for a gig starting on a Sunday afternoon when City were playing at home and on the telly was going to mean early attendance was in short supply).

And they blew it.

Not sure if Fyfe Dangerfield was overawed by the occasion, or if he thought that the seriousness of their fellow acts meant that they should opt for being a bit wacky but whatever it was it didn't work. There's no doubt that Guillemots have some high quality tunes in Kriss Kross and Get Over It and while they got an airing, Dangerfield was more interested in leaping around the stage like an afflicted spastic while knocking seven bells out of a dustbin lid with a wooden spoon. Ooh and while I'm criticising, finishing sets with a 12 minute opus probably doesn't work unless you're a classical composer that's been dead for 200 years.

It was only 45 minutes and while the musicianship (particularly the drummer) was sound, there was something disjointed and sloppy. If it was the shape of things to come then it had the makings of a very long night.

Editors 8/10

My dealings with Editors are somewhat limited despite having both albums and I wasn't sure what to expect. Well expect me to be singing them to high heaven from now as Editors turned in a startling hour long set that was one of two their performed on Sunday (they were also appearing at Leeds.) Got to be honest and say I don't know if this was their first or second performance but there was no sign they were knackered or that they had an eye on what was to come later as Tom Smith and the boys launched into a set of some intensity. Not much I can say about them really other than they were simply mindblowing. No clowning about, no overblown theatrics, just a very tight musical outfit performing some very good tunes in front of a simple monochrome backdrop. If they are as good as that when they are doing their own shows then you'll never be disappointed.

REM 9/10

They've been doing this for a long time so it's no surprise that REM deliver a stage show of the highest order. From the moment Stipe and the band hit the stage to deliver album and set opener "Living Well is the Best is Revenge" from newest album Accelerate with some aplomb that you knew everything was going to be alright. Another Accelerate number followed before static lit up the screens and gave way to two massive radios to signal the arrival of classic track "What's the Frequency, Kenneth". "Drive" followed before the technical brilliance of the "Man Sized Wreath" saw band and video in such perfect sync as Michael Stipe mouthed the final word of the song as it appeared in a huge speech bubble on the video screens. Promising some surprises in the setlist, REM pulled tracks such as "Ignoreland" and "Pretty Persuasion" out of the hat while interspersing them with everything from the magnificent "Bad Day" to brand new tracks such as "Hollow Man". The onstage line-up complete with spare guitarist and touring drummer fired out a massive set stretching to nearly 2 hours before winding up with "Imitation of Life" - which was only brief respite before a 5 track encore that saw "Supernatural Superserious" vie for performance of the night with "Man on the Moon" and a near perfect audience singalong of "Losing my Religion".

I've seen some good shows in my time but REM do it much better than nearly everyone. It's a tight set but not so tight that you feel they'd be doing the same thing every night (like Madness did) and while £45 a ticket might seem like a lot of money, a band like REM don't come along every day - and I'll certainly be stumping up next time they come to a town near (or as in this case, nowhere near) me.

[DudeAsInCool]

Solid review A friend took me to see The Editors earlier in the year at The Wiltern, and I agree, they were quite good.

[Malicious Intent]

Excellent review Ox. Now I want to go just so that I can disappear off and a few minutes later reappear with beverages and a smug look of insider knowledge.

Guillemots are OK and I'm a big fan of the Editors.

I had a housemate who was obsessed with REM. He used to sit in the living room strumming Losing My Religion on this stupid little guitar thing ("it's not a guitar!!")

He also once decided to serenade me with Everything I Do by Bryan Adams. I was sitting in the garden and he lent out his bedroom window to sing. There was a Scottish lady next door who lent over the fence and said to me, "aww, that is so sweet. I can't imagine my boyfriend doing that for me. You two make such a sweet couple."

[rainbowdemon]

He also once decided to serenade me with Everything I Do by Bryan Adams. I was sitting in the garden and he lent out his bedroom window to sing. There was a Scottish lady next door who lent over the fence and said to me, "aww, that is so sweet. I can't imagine my boyfriend doing that for me. You two make such a sweet couple."

That's fucking priceless!!

[DudeAsInCool]

Here is a recent performance by R.E.M in Dublin, performing Until The Day Is Done, from Accelerate: