REM / The Zutons / Idlewild - KC Stadium, Hull, 05/07/05 contd by Nicholas Boldock

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That voice does the business in fine style on "Wanderlust" (from last year's Around The Sun), as good as song as any REM have written. Some twenty-odd years after debut single "Radio Free Europe", they can still churn them out with enviable consistency. "Electron Blue", which Stipe describes as "my favourite song off the last album", is equally great, much better live than it is on record. One of the most powerful moments of the night comes late on in the set when Stipe introduces the anti-Bush song, "The Final Straw", written and recorded in the early days of the Iraq war.

"We wrote this as a protest to the actions of our government in the current administration," he says. The lyrics are equally forthright - for example, "Now I don't believe and I never did that two wrongs make a right / If the world were filled with the likes of you, then I'm putting up a fight." Not only does "The Final Straw" carry a message which shouldn't be ignored, it happens to be an ace song to boot.

Talking of ace songs, after "The Final Straw", REM bring out the big guns, first with a rocked-up version of the classic "The One I Love", then "Walk Unafraid" (from 1998's massively underrated Up), and then - what REM gig would be complete without it - "Losing My Religion", at which the stadium crowd goes collectively and inevitably mental. It still sounds so fresh that it's incredible to think that it was first released some 14 years ago. Then it's time for the encores, and they surprise everybody by - unpredictable as ever - including a cover of "Teenage Kicks", sung by second guitarist Bill McCoy. Like everything REM do, it's superb.

"Imitation Of Life" and "The Great Beyond" are also played in the encores, and by now the band are in the zone, they can do no wrong, and every track is even better - and louder - than the last.

And just when you think they must surely have run out of classic songs (they've been on for two hours at this point), they round things off with a hyperactive, guitar-heavy, "Man On The Moon", during which the crowd once again go utterly bonkers. We're left at the end gawping in appreciation, with REM standing centre-stage, beaming, looking triumphant, as if they've just abolished poverty or brought about world peace. They look chuffed to bits. And well they might do. They came... they saw... they stopped the rain... and they rocked the bollocks off the KC Stadium.

"See you next time!" Michael Stipe shouts as REM leave the stage. Next time? Let's hope so. Check KC Stadium Website www.kcstadium.co.uk

Photographs courtsey and Copyright © Matt Rudd and SMC 2005

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