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Review by Rob.

Idlewild - Did you hear the one about the REM singer and the blue paint?

I always think its a bit strange having gigs at cricket grounds. Take the wicket for example. In a test match the umpire will mercilessly bollock a bowler for as much as putting his toe on the line of the stumps, but here 20000 people are allowed to jump up and down on it for 2 hours. Just before the band come on you turn towards the pavilion half expecting them to saunter down the steps, bats tucked under arms. Old Trafford is especially a strange place to see a band, with its motley collection of stands situated miles from the stage and trams passing by every 5 minutes or so giving the occupants a tantalizing free view for a few seconds. Still there is a quality line up on parade today and so without further ado let play commence. (Apologies in advance for any cheap cricket terminology jokes that may appear later).

Opening the show are Idlewild who also did the honours for U2 four days earlier on the other side of the city. Then they suffered at the hands of a typically apathetic audience only interested in the headliners. Today is much more to their liking. A healthy amount of the crowd is already in the ground and keen for some music. Also the band themselves seem much more up for it. Though they play pretty much the same set, a couple more from their best album, The Remote Part are added. 'You held the World in Your Arms' is epic, as is previous single 'Love steals us'. The band even finding time for some banter with the audience. As always they finish with their best song 'American English' and today it sounds like the perfect pop song it is. A solid performance from the openers then, laying the platform for a big score later on.

Its only a couple of weeks since Liverpool won the champions league and city residents the Zutons are not going to miss the opportunity to let any Man Utd fans in the ground know all about this, thus their set is filled with lots of sledging to this end. To be fair they get a bit back about the dole and car theft but its all good natured stuff. Along with the Thrills, they are one of those bands who come into their own on a hot summer afternoon, and thus they are rather good here. The audience loves them from the off as 'Zuton Fever' echoes around the ground. The best song though has to be 'Dirty Dancehall'with its scathing put down of their home cities nightlife. The big hits from the debut album 'Remember me' and 'You will you won't' are dusted down early each hitting home like a straight six over the bowlers head. They play a new song the title of which I cant remember plus one off single 'Don't ever think too much' with its sax centric riff from Abi who I wouldn't mind doing some sax with sometime soon. As with all good shows its over too soon but they left their mark on the day, especially with Man Utd fans.

REM - Stipe with stripe

As a bonus on this date we get the considerable talents of Feeder. Curiously they meet a slightly more muted response than the previous 2 bands but its really the tea interval now as anyone in the long queues for refreshments will testify,and peoples attention tends to wander a bit. They play a quite varied set with stuff from all their albums. I prefer the Comfort in Sound stuff, 'Just the way i'm Feeling' and 'Come Back Around' are both excellent. They get the crowd back on track with big hits 'Buck Rodgers' and 'Just a Day', mass singalongs breaking out to the latter. 'Concrete' from debut album Polythene is a surprise inclusion and by the end they have the audience warmed up nicely for the main act.

Everything is running really early which is a good thing because it paves the way for REM to play one of their finest and longest sets. The reason I love seeing them live if that they never play the same set twice and stick in more obscure stuff for the fans as well as playing their more obvious bigger hits. It would be easy to just turn up and go through the motions as, say, Oasis do but safe does not seem to be in their dictionary. There is also the small matter of new album Around the Sun to promote. Its an album that has taken a while to find favour with me and I was hoping the live renditions would give a more positive outlook. Its still very light when they bound on and go straight into 'I took your Name' from New adventures in Hi fi. Michael Stipe looks well weird with a huge blue stripe painted across his face. His energetic onstage performance belies his appearance, he has looked about 60 years old now for the last 10 years. The up tempo start continues with 'Bad day' and 'What's the frequency Kenneth?' and huge hit 'The one I love' along with new album song 'Electron Blue' they complete the opening salvo of 5 songs from 5 different albums.

The first real shock is the appearance of 'Driver 8' from the Eponymous album, and a run through the more familiar 'Drive' takes the album count to 7. There follow a batch of newer songs of which 'Leaving New York' is the best, indeed its one of REM's finest songs, by far the best thing on the new album. Tonight its played with real emotion as night falls and Stipe's voice cracks as he sings it. It obviously holds real significance for him. One song that holds significance for a lot of the REM audience is 'Everybody Hurts', tonight it's magnificent, its special appeal aided by the audience who sing along to every word. They get even higher marks from me by playing one of my favourite REM songs, 'Electrolite' from New Adventures. There's little in the way of between song banter tonight, Stipe seems always to let the music do the talking,sometimes he even seems a little shy, there's no rock posturing, only a humility which serves to bind them with their audience even more. A truly surprising 'Me in Honey' follows and we turn to the home run with more classics, 'Orange Crush', a superb 'Walk Unafraid' and the song that has become a bit of an albatross for them 'Losing my Religion' closes the main set.

One feature of an REM show is the amount of encores they do. Tonight we get seven more songs. There is the twin assault of newer hit singles 'The great Beyond' and 'Imitation of Life' both popular with the younger audience here. Then the shock on the night, 'These Days' from the Life's Rich Pageant album. On this tour they have also played the classic 'Cuyahoga' too, though not tonight. Then they play another of my faves, 'Nightswimming'. One other feature of an REM show is that they always fit in a brand new song and so tonight we get 'I'm gonna DJ' a classic poppy tune in the vein of the Up album. That's about it save for a run through of 'Man on the Moon' and everyone joins in with the "Hey baby" Elvis refrain. Then that's it, they're gone, its close of play, and we know it has been a classic show, better even than their Glastonbury performance. The only quibbles was the anoraky wish list for songs such as 'Country Feedback', 'Find the River' and 'Fall on me'. For a show at such a venue, appropriately they bowled us all over. Roll on next time. For now they must make do with the 2005 best band Award.

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