QTheMusic.com

WEDNESDAY, 12 MARCH

The first lesson of today is this: it may be indeed be cool bordering on chill first thing in the Austin morning, but this is still no reason at all to wear more than a solitary layer of clothing. Within an hour or two it is hot – very hot. Not a good time, then, to be hiking along the considerable stretch of Sixth Avenue looking for a record shop. Waterloo Records, in fact, a shop so established around these parts it has its own merchandising outlet at Austin Airport.

Waterloo Records is worth the effort – home to well-stocked racks of cheap CDs, vinyl and sundry other memorabilia; although, somewhat frustratingly, it’s the things you’re really looking for that they seem to not have. That, and the fact they will present you with a paper bag with which to carry armfuls of CDs that splits within steps of leaving the place. Being environmentally friendly has its costs.

Anyway… It is but a short cab ride from here to the Yard Dog party. Located out back of a small art gallery, its small stage shaded by an overhead canopy, it’s an entirely pleasant affair: a couple of hundred folk ambling around drinking cold beer and watching a varied selection of acts play short, low-key sets. Ed Harcourt is among them: evidently seen and welcomed as something of the maverick troubadour by today’s gathering, Harcourt and his band are a pretty good opening turn. Not least since the man himself sings one song through a telephone. This I mistakenly assume will be a first and last for SXSW 2008.

Next up is Sylvie Simmons. The self-same Sylvie Simmons who contributes to Q on occasion and who is making her live debut proper this afternoon. Playing a ukelele and singing gentle, heartbreak country ballads in a lilting voice, Seasick Sylvie, as she shall henceforth be known, comes through with flying colours.

By lunchtime the bars, clubs and restaurants on Sixth Avenue are opening up, each one hosting live performances throughout the day and night. I take a mid-afternoon stroll, popping in at random to see, in no particular order: a fairly hopeless rockabilly collective, a similarly nondescript hardcore trio whose party trick involves the drummer having a can of beer poured down his throat and whose frontman sings one verse into a mobile phone (phones are evidently ‘in’), and a rag-tag collection of musicians playing on a street corner who look like the Beverly Hillbillies and play entirely charming hoedowns.

In another bar I also see the Jacob Jeffries Band, who are much more like it. A four-piece from Florida fronted by the engaging, piano-bashing Jeffries, they tap into the classic lineage of ‘70s adult pop (there are traces of Steely Dan, the early years of both solo Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, the humorous literacy of a Randy Newman), and do so expertly – the drummer, a mountain-sized black dude with a top-quality afro is especially diverting – and often excellently. They are perhaps lacking that one killer tune at this point, but I more than happily bought their CD - a five-track EP – for $5. You can check them out right now at www.myspace.com/jacobjeffries . Jeffries concludes their set by walking through the audience and personally thanks everyone for coming. Michael Stipe, one strongly suspects, will not be doing the same later.

The main event of the night is, but of course, R.E.M.’s debut showing at SXSW, a midnight start at Stubbs’ annual BBQ bash. Stubbs itself is SXSW’s biggest venue: an outdoor tract of land fringed by trees and on a warm night such as this bathed pleasingly in moonlight. As anticipated, it’s full (capacity is perhaps 700-800), but not uncomfortably so, and certainly there’s no scrum to get in (this is, after all, a free show).

The vibe is that of a festival in miniature. There’s full bill of acts before R.E.M. I miss Florida’s Summerbirds In The Cellar and only catch the end of Jonathan Rice’s set, wherein laidback but not diverting seems to be the general tone of things. Another Florida band, Papercranes, are next up. They’re much beloved of the man Stipe, apparently, but again the word that springs to mind watching their 30-minute set is ‘pleasant’.

Better by far are Dead Confederate, a five-piece from Atlanta. Initially starting out like Smashing Pumpkins doing a Nirvana set (the frontman’s voice is a dead ringer for Billy Corgan’s, albeit without the nasal wine and the lifeless delivery). But after a couple of songs they stretch out into something else altogether – something in fact with makes one think of Sonic Youth, the Pink Floyd of Meddle and, of all things, early Verve all at the same time. Songs are stretched out into long, undulating pieces, ebbing and flowing through a series of crashing crescendos. Their final climactic surge vibrates through the ground. Keep an eye out for them.

It is gone midnight by the time R.E.M. take to the stage. First impressions are that Michael Stipe, sporting a lurid beanie hat and what looks like his grandfather’s jacket, appears to have arrived fresh from collecting Austin’s bins; that Mike Mills is as composed a presence as ever; and that – hallelujah! – surly old Peter Buck, last seen on the Around The Sun tour in the guise of a man who’d rather be anywhere else – looks thoroughly happy to be here.

The sense that Buck individually and R.E.M. collectively have re-engaged with themselves and their muse is further enhanced by an opening burst of songs that fair flies by: jagged sprints through the new album’s lead-off tracks Living Well Is The Best Revenge and Man Sized Wreath get things going, before they stretch back to Reckoning for a sprightly Second Guessing. It’s breathless stuff, marred only by the muddiest of sounds.

A stately Drive and Hollow Man, one of Accelerate’s most immediate moments and home to the best R.E.M. chorus in years complete an initial 20 minutes that touches upon the great. It also sees the Stipe voice in fine fettle – rich, deep and just ragged enough at the edges – and his bendy robot stage moves working to full, oddball effect. Likewise Mills’ harmonies, restored to their rightful place at the heart of the R.E.M. sound on Accelerate, and rising to a state of grandeur during a tremulous take on Auctioneer (Another Engine).

But it’s Buck who’s most worth watching. Slashing away at his guitar here, undertaking enthusiastic if clumsy scissor kicks there, and overall seeming for all the world a man who’s fallen back in love with this whole R.E.M. thing. Indeed, for what seems like the first time in years, he interacts with his bandmates throughout, smiles often, and even plants a kiss on Stipe’s bald head after the singer has done a particularly fine turn on Imitation Of Life.

It’s a not a total victory, mind. The coupling of Fall On Me and The Great Beyond works a treat mid-set, but thereafter the pacing stumbles and the band seem unable to pick up the momentum for a good while thereafter. Stipe, too, is increasingly in talkative mode, bemoaning the state of his country, taking a potshot or two at the Bush presidency, endorsing Barrack Obama… all very laudable but hardly surprising, and a series of colons inserted into a set that had hitherto been running like a seamless sentence. He also dedicates Until The Day Is Done to Heath Ledger, whose death by all accounts explained Stipe’s sour and distracted mood during recent interviews.

It’s a long show, too, coming in at a little over two hours, and after that triumphal first quarter the audience settle into a sort of comfortable inertia. Hence, that crucial connection between band and crowd that marks the great gigs goes missing and doesn’t come back. One could, too, take issue with some of the later set-list selections: no Finest Worksong or It’s The End Of The World… (indeed, there are no songs at all from Document, Green and Out Of Time, none of which albums are short of a tune or two), but room for Animal and Bad Day? There are, perhaps, only three people who’d make that particular call.

R.E.M. do recover their moorings during a speeded up Walk Unafraid (further proof that even their most maligned albums have a scattering of gems), and new single Supernatural Superserious sounds ever more like greatness reawakening from a long slumber. And when Man On The Moon hoves into view with the clock nudging past 2am, R.E.M. can claim a points victory.

It’s good to have them back.

R.E.M. SETLIST
Living Well Is The Best Revenge
Man Sized Wreath
Second Guessing
Drive
Hollow Man
Animal
Auctioneer (Another Engine)
Mr Richards
Fall On Me
The Great Beyond
Houston
Electrolite
Accelerate
Until The Day Is Done
Final Straw
Bad Day
Horse To Water
Walk Unafraid

Supernatural Superserious
Imitation Of Life
I’m Gonna DJ
Man On The Moon

Paul Rees, Editor, Q

2:40 PM | 14/03/2008