Awesome!! Last night smg and I, together with some straggling Aussies, a couple of ladies and senor Fruital Brute headed off to watch R.E.M. rip up the Coca Cola Dome in Northgate. The last concert I went to was Counting Crows (also at the Dome), and after that I swore never to buy seating tickets to a live event again. So this time we did it proper, and went Golden Circle. Much better, and definately worth the extra bucks.

Arno Carstens’ New Porn opened competently, and got the crowd going. We’d already been tucking into a few cold ones, when I happened to notice R.E.M. bassist, Mike Mills, standing right behind us, watching the show. And no-one realised. But I went over, said hello and invited him back to my place for some joints and porn. He said he’d think about it. We stood there in silence for a while, until he started making me feel awkward (doos)…so I left him.

I’m lying about the invitation.

R.E.M. were great, but perhaps didn’t throw enough variation into their material. As someone commented afterwards, you may as well just have listened to their CD’s. Not entirely true, but I get where he was coming from.

Classics like “Losing my Religion”, “Orange Crush”, “Man on the Moon” and favourite “Everybody Hurts” went down like the proverbial bomb, but the newer stuff, including “Imitation of Life”, “The Great Beyond” and “Leaving New York” really seemed to excite the Dome just as much. I found a set list from the Cape Town show – its difficult to read, but looks almost identical to the Joburg one.

(click to enlarge)

Michael Stipe is a rock god. It cannot be denied. Despite looking like a heroin-addicted Nosferatu, he still owned the stage. The lighting was great, and the long flat TV thingy (that flashed clips from music videos, lyrics and live footage of the show) above the band was a pretty cool feature.

Fantastic concert, and I’m really glad I got to see what has been one of the biggest bands in the world over the past 10 years.