R.E.M. - Rockpalast

(Soundboard)

2 October 1995 - (Rockpalast) Die Zeche - Bochum, Germany



This show often brings me back to my days of searching out bootlegs on the Northside of Chicago. There was a great store called Video Beat on Clark Street about a block or so north of Diversey which had a great selection of VHS Bootlegs. The original broadcast of this show which was abbreviated from this version had a small interview with Michael Stipe which has been cut from the full length version of this. However, I still rate it as my all time favorite video of R.E.M. It captured the band at a particular moment in history where they could have remained "Cult Heroes" or "Name Brand Superstars".
This show was during the Reconstruction tour, after an album that many in the band felt almost broke them up. One of the things that always fascinated me about the early videos of R.E.M. was the different characters Michael would play onstage. Compare this video with the Passaic Show from 1984 you get a completely different Stipe onstage, one that was much more shy and hid behind his hair. Even some of the videos from 1985 showed Stipe doing different poses. The Alabmahalle abbreviated video from a couple days later shows a much more subdued Stipe. Even going back further in the year, the May 1985 video from Raleigh, North Carolina shows Stipe in his hobo phase, in some places completely ignoring the antics of the fans. As I came to love the Rockpalast Video, I have realized that it is just one face of the band. As I have collected the bootlegs and shows, its the collection of these different faces which truly makes the R.E.M. live experience such a joyous adventure. Most of all, what R.E.M. did in Rockpalast was sell a very sedate crowd into R.E.M. This show was in Germany which happened to be the second such time the band had visited Germany and thus the crowd did not have a wealth of knowledge about the band. That is what a live show should be about.

01 Intro
02 Feeling Gravity's Pull
03 Harbour Coat
04 Sitting Still
05 Maps and Legends
06 Fall On Me
07 Green Grow The Rushes
08 Driver 8
09 Hyena
10 South Central Rain
11 Have You Ever Seen The Rain
12 Can't Get There From Here
13 King Of The Road
14 Seven Chinese Brothers
15 Auctioneer (Another Engine)
16 Old Man Kensey
17 Little America
18 Pretty Persuasion
19 Theme From Two Steps Onward
20 Toys In The Attic
21 See No Evil
22 Second Guessing
23 (Ghost) Riders In The Sky
24 (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
25 We WalkFalling In Love AgainBehind Closed Doors
26 Paint It Black

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