Tourfilm

Today marks the 25th anniversary of R.E.M. releasing their first ever live video, Tourfilm, which - I think - captured them at their peak.

R.E.M. spent most of the 80's on the road, and being primarily a live band even influenced their songwriting: their early songs didn't necessarily had fully written lyrics that they stuck to (well, you couldn't understand what Michael was singing anyway), and when they first made a record, they mostly used it to book more gigs.

Obviously, by the time they started their Green World Tour in 1989, many things have changed. They played in much larger venues to much bigger audiences, most of their songs had proper lyrics, and they even had an extra touring musician (Peter Holsapple on guitar and keyboards) to be able to do their songs justice. The majority of the setlist was made up of material from their 3 latest albums at the time, Green, Document and Lifes Rich Pageant, which happen to be my favourite albums from them. They still had a youthful energy - most of them were still in their 20s -, and although they were already signed to a major label, their independent spirit was very much still there. They were still playing a few random covers or instrumentals every now and then, used snippets from other artists' songs as intros, and made fun of themselves and the fact that they were playing arenas. And most of all, they were bloody good.

If I really had to say something not entirely positive, it would be that Tourfilm is a bit too short. The visual part was filmed on multiple gigs, but the audio was all from the Greensboro show, and luckily they released all their original songs from that concert in 2013, so now we can at least listen to those great tracks that didn't make the cut.

I was lucky enough to see R.E.M. multiple times later in their career, and they remained one of the best live acts on the planet until they called it a day, impressing not just a die-hard fan like me, but even people who only knew the hits beforehand or were old fans and reluctant to see them dreading disappointment, and - thanks to stuff like Tourfilm - we can still enjoy their greatness to this very day.