Here are some of David Belisle’s favorite shots of the first two months of the tour. David is a busy man, juggling a few jobs on the road with us, and he does them all well but always finds a way to snap the best upclose and funny shots of the guys of R.E.M. … “doing what they do.” The book R.E.M.: HELLO is a great success for Chronicle Books and there is another signing event planned at Waterstone’s in London on August 29th in conjunction with R.E.M.’s return for the UK shows at the end of the month.
The first two months went by fast and all are now scattered and enjoying a little break before plunging back into Europe in two weeks at Salzburg’s Frequency Festival, long reported to be one of Europe’s best of its kind. So far so good on the shows and although the pace of the travel can be intense, the overall experience is fun, exciting and memorable. We all look forward to more and the shows ought to keep getting better and better. Any crowd that tops Milan or Verona is going to be doing something special as those were 2 exceptionally appreciative and expressive audiences and led to 2 of the best R.E.M. shows I can remember. And Nyon wasn’t bad either– almost like a Dublin reception for the band late on a Sunday night in Switzerland. A nice sendoff into the holidays for sure.
So . . . . enjoy the pictures (Thanks David), stay tuned for more details on that late autumn period in the Americas, and see you at a show.
Happy August.
Bertis
PS: A couple of recent blogposts of interest, the first from band friend Sean Nelson (Harvey Danger) who wrote this nice blog in the LA Times; the second by George Howard of Loyola University and general music business all-star with some love expressed for R.E.M.’s use of technology on the tour site and throughout the ACCELERATE project at 9Giantsteps.
PPS: If you live in the UK or Ireland, you might want to check out VH1’s broadcast of R.E.M.’s Oxegen performance on Saturday at 5pm. Click here for more info.