R.E.M. remembers with this two-disc live album (plus DVD), recorded
during a five-night stand at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin in 2007,
before the release and tour for the outstanding Accelerate.
Along with strong, strident versions of the new songs, they dig deep
into album tracks from the first decade of the band, especially the
years they released several seminal albums on IRS Records. According to
guitarist Peter Buck’s notes on each selection, the band had forgotten
much of its catalogue—essentially forgotten itself. Bookended by the
Accelerate songs, this is a great story.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.