An R.E.M. Summer: The REiMagined Albums - part 4

This is the last post for the time being. There were a few different things I had lined-up to be the conclusion of this run and I kept changing my mind. Recent articles have met with far less of a response than I was hoping for, so the best articles I had lined up really would have been wasted. I may post them at some point in the future - here or elsewhere - or I may not. We'll see.

In the end, I decided to round off with one more REiMagined album I put together myself (not the one that was originally planned for last week), and this one has an added twist...

I always thought 'Accelerate' was an album made to be played live. It's loud and raw, stripped of everything that made its two immediate predecessors so awful. It was a back to basics R.E.M., an album that retraced their roots back to their earliest days and those hectic shows at Tyrone's O.C. and the like.

So what I've done is basically compile a completely live version of 'Accelerate' using various performances recorded between 2005 and 2008. Now I don't have stacks of bootlegs from this era, but I have a couple, and along with some officially-released stuff, I've managed to not only bring the whole thing to life, but also sling in a couple of bonus tracks too. Tracks 1-10 follow the album tracklisting faithfully but ends with Stipe bidding the audience "goodnight". What follows is an 'encore' consisting of two non-album songs plus the album closer.

The sources I've used here are:

'Live At The Olympia' - official live album recorded in Dublin in early July 2007. The band played four nights in front of an audience to rehearse new material just prior to the recording of 'Accelerate'. The shows were billed as 'working rehearsals' rather than official live gigs. All but one of the album's songs was performed over the four nights plus two other new songs that didn't make the album, nor that have ever been released in any other form.

'The Take-Away Session' - recorded at various locations around Athens, GA. and filmed by Vincent Moon for La Blogothèque in September 2007. I've included Sing For The Submarine, a song played only a few times on the 2008 tour. This version was played inside a grain silo and features Bill Rieflin playing a plastic pot, breaking sticks and banging the side and floor of the silo!

'Live At The Rolling Stone' - bootleg of a performance at The Rolling Stone in Milan for MTV Italy. The small audience included invited Fan Club members.

'iTunes Live In London' - official recording at the Apple Store in Regent Street in March 2008. Most of the set was released on iTunes a few months later.

'Oxegen 08' - bootleg of a segment of the set played at the Oxegen Festival in Co. Kildare, Ireland in July 2008.

'Live At Rock AM Ring' - bootleg of the band's performance at the 2005 Rock AM Ring Festival at the Nürburgring, Nürburg. I'm Gonna DJ was played during the tour for 'Around The Sun' and must have been the most thrilling thing to hear from the band at that time!

I've strung it all together as a continuous file as usual - enjoy.

Accelerate [REiMagined Live] compiled by TheRobster 1. Living Well Is The Best Revenge (Dublin) 2. Man-Sized Wreath (London) 3. Supernatural Superserious (Oxegen) 4. Hollow Man (Milan) 5. Houston (Dublin) 6. Accelerate (Dublin) 7. Until The Day Is Done (Milan) 8. Mr. Richards (Dublin) 9. Sing For The Submarine (Athens, GA.) 10. Horse To Water (London) 11. Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance (Dublin) 12. On The Fly (Dublin) 13. I'm Gonna DJ (Nürburg)

Grab it here!

As an added bonus, here's Sing For The Submarine from inside the silo!

 

Thanks for reading. I'm back off to my burrow for a long sleep.