By JON CARAMANICA
Published: June 21, 2008
Michael Stipe, lead singer of R.E.M., spent a great deal of time explicating on Thursday night, good-naturedly turning Madison Square Garden into a lecture hall. “This,” he said of “Disturbance at the Heron House,” from 1987, “is my rewriting of the novel ‘Animal Farm.’ ” “Ignoreland,” from 1992, was his “barely adult reaction to the Iran-Contra scandal.” And “Man-Sized Wreath,” from this year’s album “Accelerate”(Warner Brothers), was inspired, he said, by the day in 2004 when, met by several hundred protesters, President Bush visited — or, in Mr. Stipe’s description, “desecrated” — the grave of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Michael Stipe with R.E.M. on Thursday. The band played old hits as well as material from its recent album, “Accelerate.”
It is but one of several acidic songs on “Accelerate,” which is musically and lyrically vigorous in a way no R.E.M. album has approached since “New Adventures In Hi-Fi,” from 1996. Less a return to form than a renewal of purpose, the album was a welcome relief, all but obliterating the memories of the meanderings of the last decade.
But even though the group — Mr. Stipe, the guitarist Peter Buck and the bassist Mike Mills — clearly wanted to make “Accelerate” a priority, performing 8 of its 11 songs, the new material, though loud and direct on record, was sometimes shapeless. “Until the Day Is Done” felt lethargic, and “I’m Gonna DJ” seemed hollow, like an unpleasant stunt. “Houston” — “about the Bush administration’s pathetic response to Katrina,” Mr. Stipe declared — was a bit too refined for its undeniable anger.
The band was most invigorating on its older, more slippery numbers, which were less about aggression than about despondence. The crowd applauded mightily when Mr. Stipe ceded the center microphone to Mr. Mills for an affecting rendition of “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville.” Mr. Mills, who had slipped on a cowboy hat over his frizzy blond hair, preserved the song’s underlying twang without overplaying it. The result was a hypnotically soft country tune; Emmylou Harris should cover it.
After Mr. Mills returned to his spot at stage right, R.E.M. stuck with the mood: an excellent version of the country-rock “Driver 8,” followed by “Harborcoat,” which was delivered with far more density, velocity and boogie than the original had. Who knew songs this small, and all more than 20 years old, would sound so good in a room this big?
Years of fine-tuning have helped, and have also honed Mr. Stipe’s onstage presence: an ironist who does not thumb his nose at his more pedestrian obligations. (He ended “The One I Love” on bended knee.) Though he rarely tested himself vocally, Mr. Stipe still occasionally thrilled, moving spastically, his limbs bending in unexpected ways, and Mr. Mills and Mr. Buck were steady as ever.
When all three jelled, as on the warm, blissful reverie “Drive,” it was an event. Over the course of the song the band steadily worked the audience into a respectful hush.
This was a show that rewarded loyalists: of the more than two dozen songs the band played, maybe six or seven were hits, and it skipped several of its most famous songs (“Everybody Hurts,” “Stand”) altogether. Wisely, R.E.M. barely touched the three albums that preceded “Accelerate,” preferring instead a more coherent and streamlined version of its history.
During the encore Mr. Stipe returned to 2004, also the last time the band played Madison Square Garden, a couple of nights after Election Day. He was wearing a white silk suit, he recalled, “ready for a victory moment” that hadn’t arrived. By this point in the encore, the band had already delivered a trim, strong version of “Losing My Religion,” a churning “Begin the Begin” and a desperate “Fall on Me.”
But before the final song, Mr. Stipe couldn’t quite help but offer one last mini-sermon. “George W. Bush is a pathetic idiot,” he said, then looked forward: “I feel very, very hopeful with 2008.” How that optimism, not historically R.E.M.’s strong suit, will translate into song remains to be seen.
R.E.M. will perform on Saturday night at the Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta, (404) 443-5000, before beginning a European tour on July 2 in Amsterdam.
