R E M Live At The Olympia CD

Personnel: Michael Stipe (vocals); Mike Mills (keyboards, bass guitar, background vocals); Bill Rieflin (drums).
Audio Mixers: Jacknife Lee; Sam Bell.
Liner Note Author: Andy Gill.
R.E.M.'s five-night residency at Dublin's Olympia in the summer of 2007
"This is not a show," murmurs Michael Stipe at the start of LIVE AT THE OLYMPIA and it's not quite misdirection. R.E.M.'s five-night residency at Dublin's Olympia in the summer of 2007 functioned as working rehearsals for their fourteenth album ACCELERATE, with the band testing out each of the songs, exploring arrangements, finding breaking points, and pairing them with older songs that informed their back-to-basics move. As rehearsal, it paid off splendidly -- road-testing the material made it stronger, resulting in their best album in years -- but the audience was in for a real treat, with the band digging deep into their back catalog to play some of their best non-hit songs. Just as importantly, the band sounds completely engaged with the material, enjoying playing the songs again. And that is what R.E.M. is here -- a tighter, cleaner band than the scruffy renegades of the '80s, but still the same band, which is evident here in ways it never was on the perfectly fine R.E.M. LIVE. That was a production. This is rock & roll.Rolling Stone (p.76) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[This] captures intimate, occasionally great performances....The selling point on LIVE AT THE OLYMPIA is R.E.M. spelunking through early catalog gems..."