R.E.M. - Tourfilm
by Michael Stipe, Jim McKay
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DVD details
Actor: Bill Berry (II), Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter BuckDirector: Jim McKay, Michael Stipe
DVD: Region Code 2
Audio: English (Unknown), PCM Stereo; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), PCM Stereo
Format: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 85 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-08-22
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Bros / Wea
DVD Reviews of R.E.M. - Tourfilm
DVD Review: "This one goes out to Exxon."
Summary: 3 Stars
Every once and a while I come across a concert so unique that I need to write a review for the benefit of other fans. Having been a fan of REM since their start in Georgia (I love Indigo Girls, too, by the way), I was really excited to finally get "Tourfilm". I love live concerts, since you get a real feel for the artists' ability to communicate with their fans, see how passionate they are about their message and see if they are just a studio band. While I would never classify REM as a studio band, this DVD is amazingly bad. I know, I don't want to admit it, but Stipe is very much off pitch in at least half of the songs. Perhaps he had been singing too much on previous days, or was sick, or had eaten a dead dog. I dunno what the heck was wrong, but it wasn't working for him. If it were not for Mills singing harmony or backup, his thin voice would have been even more painful. (I watched the whole concert once and thought it was ok, then I just listened to it while I cleaned the house and had to turn it off for lack of coherence.)
And I can certainly make allowances for bad live performances. I can quickly think of a few live acts I've seen like a Dylan concert, an REO SW concert, a Duran concert (never a Peter Gabriel concert though) where the band just wasn't up to par; but the difference is that they didn't put that out on a dvd. Whoever thought that the quality of this concert was worth preserving and then selling was seriously mistaken. It's really bad, and it has nothing to do with production quality or mixing. It's all Stipe's fault as far as I am concerned. The rest of the band sounds pretty good, but you can tell they are no virtuosos and haven't refined themselves in this setting at this time in their career. Sounds like a decent college-town bar band still.
OK, `nuff of the technical critique. Now I turn my attention to the annoying quality of Stipe that has not improved over the years. Now don't get me wrong. I am all in favor of using art to voice your opinion, but it gets tacky sometimes, and Stipe is a transgressor in this regard. To one fan he yells, "That better not be Styrofoam!" Uh, Mike, if that's an issue then tell your vendor, or the arena's vendor, not to use them when you're there. Another time he starts a song off with "This one goes out to Exxon", to which the crowd offers a somewhat reluctant response (the crowd isn't too into this concert). The problem isn't that he sounds like a liberal college professor in a lecture hall, but that his antics and stance seem to be irrelevant to the fans, most of whom supported Exxon that day and did so the following week. It goes back to the "case of the liberal celebrity". It's true that they have valid opinions just like the rest of us, and it's also true that they have a larger voice owing to their celebrity. But the venue for such comments has to be taken into account. Runway models on the red carpet talking about starving children or nuclear arms or war is just as silly as Stipe's comments to this fan base. True in themselves perhaps, but if they were dressed up, those comments (and there were more) would be wearing a 70s leisure suit at a black tie dinner. He should take some lessons from Bono on how to make a proper delivery.
Lastly, what's wrong with getting some tweezers out? Ok, so that last one was just silly. I'm still a huge fan, but am happy I found this at a garage sale with a few quarters in my pocket. I feel pretty traitorous even writing this, but someone has to voice a dissenting report (in the spirit of Michael Stipe's penchant for dissent).
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