Since Dave hasn't yet posted his ruminations on the REM concert (In Spain, they pronounce it as one syllable--Rem__slight roll of the R). I'll just go ahead and do that.

Dave insists that U2 is the greatest band, but I'd just like to make the case for my old friends from Athens. ( I know this isn't fair to Dave, who may be an even bigger REM fan than me).

Yeah, their relevance has slipped a bit (but their last real single, "Imitation of Life" went to number 1 in Japan), and yeah, their accessibility isn't always--well--existent.

But what can you say about a band who writes song about The Cuyahoga River, Andy Kaufman, summer skinny-dipping and the Bush administration (take your pick), and still has the cojones to illuminate their stage with a giant red L-U-V.

C'mon!

Anyway, the set was great. First off, no stinkers. No "Shiny Happy People," "Stand" (although I have a soft spot for that one), or "Everybody Hurts."

Second of all, since it was a best-of tour, we didn't have an overload of new material. Three songs, two of which seemed to me distinct improvements on the last album, was all.

Third, lots of D.C.-appropraite material. Dave speculated that the band probably doesn't play "Exhuming McCarthy" at every stop. Plus "World Leader Pretend" is one of my favorites.

Four, Michael Stipe has totally embraced his inner silliness. He's generally abandoned the recalcitrance that marked the murmur period, but he's also backed off some from the Bono-esque glam ethos that started with Monster. The entire band was relaxed, Stipe was conversational, and the dancing. Nothing beats the guy's dancing, skinny arms flailing and all.

There was a bunch of material from my favorite of their albums (I won't go so far as to say their best--this is a largely subjective distinction with a catalogue as varied and extensive as REM's). Four tracks off of Automatic for the People, four from Document, several from Life's Rich Pageant. I was disappointed that nothing was played from New Adventures in Hi-Fi, but the selections from the last two albums were among the best material from those offerings.

The real highlights: Mills at the piano, low lighting, and "Nightswimming"; a remarkably good jam session at the end of Reveal's "She Just Wants To Be"; "Fall on Me"; and of course, the concert closing, shirtless rendition of "It's the End of the World as We Know it," performed with just enough sense of its cheesiness, that we could all feel perfectly fine screaming, in capital letters: LEONARD BERNSTEIN. All he needed was a skateboard to try some unsuccessful hand plants.

excellent, excellent concert.