After years of listening to their music this was the first time I'd ever seen R.E.M. play live and I felt like a sixteen year old girl about to see Justin Timberlake. Well...maybe that's a slight exaggeration. Nevertheless, this was the show I was anticipating the most.

The boys put on a great performance. Michael Stipe is quite the front man and to watch him belt out the tunes within feet of me (thank you press pass) was awesome. Of course, this only lasted for three songs, and then I ended up a hundred feet or so from the stage where a couple people talked during the rest of the set. I'll never understand this, why people go to see live music and then talk during the whole show. They're probably the same dicks that talk during movies at the movie theater. Anyways, I'm glad I finally got to see R.E.M. live. The only complaint I have is that they mostly played the (yet to be released) new album and only a couple of the older songs including "Imitation of Life" and "Man on the Moon" This wouldn't be so bad if the new album had been released for a couple months and I had a chance to get to know the music. But, it won't be out for a couple more weeks.  I've noticed this trend (touring before the album release) with other bands and I don't like it.

Check out R.E.M.'s music at www.remhq.com or www.myspace.com/rem