June 13 2008: REM, Modest Mouse, the National - Comcast Center, Mansfield MA

It was a idyllic fucking day. The sky was blue, Cait and I were in Boston anyway, and we got what were otherwise $40 lawn seats for $15 each at the last minute. We got picnic supplies from the Foodmaster: bread, tomatoes, mozzarella, chips, tonic water and a lime. We went home and made sandwiches and cut the limes up and put them in a tupperware. Picked up some Tanqueray nips on the way out of town.

Made it out of town with relatively little traffic and were soon walking around with our shoes off on soft green grass and eating tasty sandwiches and enjoying gin & tonics. There were cute little kids running around. It was 70 degrees and there was no humidity and they sky was blue with little white wispy clouds. Oh yes.

The National played first. They seemed alright. We were sad when they stopped playing because we were getting a kick watching some teenagers across the lawn try to dance. And Modest Mouse! I hadn't seen them in three years, I think. Definitely not since their newer album, which Ben played around the house quite a bit and had a song on it, "Dashboard," that I really like. They played it. They didn't play much else that I knew. But that was ok. There were some more kids dancing and they were fun to watch too.

And REM! Whom I hadn't seen in five years. They were better then. But they were pretty good here too. Opened with the first song from the new record and then into "Begin the Begin" and "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" I liked this. I like the new record, am always glad to hear "Begin the Begin," and had never seen "Kenneth" played live. It was a great way to star the set.

"Circus Envy" was played fourth, and I'd never seen it before and always liked the song. Reminds me of the couple months I spent driving clients around in a van with the "Monster" tape and not much else. They did "Man -Sized Wreath" and "Departure" and "Hollow Man," none of which I'd heard before and all of which were great. "Houston" was played, but the keyboards and bass were way too low and so it lost so much of what makes the recorded take great. "Electrolyte" was fun to hear again and reminded me of driving around San Francisco in 2002. And near the end of the set, the band huddled on a corner of the stage and got out acoustic guitars to play "I've Been High" followed by "Let Me In." Jesus, did I wish I was in a club. Those songs were amazing up on the grass and I can't imagine how much better they would have been with the band right in front of me. And "Let Me In"!!!!! They played that one the first time I saw them play, when I went up to Seattle with Ryan in 2001 and I didn't even know the song. It's since become one of my very very favorites and I always figured that seeing some tune from the second half of everyone's least-favorite REM record could never happen twice. And wow was it worth the wait.

The set finished up with "Orange Crush" and "I'm Gonna DJ." The encore was the new single followed by a half-assed "Losing My Religion," then "Rockville," "Fall On Me," "Pretty Persuasion," and "Man in the Moon." Johnny Marr joined them on those last three. The encore highlight was definitely "Fall On Me," not for them playing it fantastically or anything, but just because the other tunes were pretty sub-par. Which was too bad. I've seen "Losing My Religion" and "Man on the Moon" be fucking showstoppers. Oh Well.

And! Nothing from "Up"! Which I kept holding out for. I was disappointed. But we still had a great time, and for pretty cheap. And for the record: for the second time in his life, Adam Sweeney passed up a $15 REM show. Dude needs to get his priorities straight.