Customer Reviews

R.E.M. - Perfect Square

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, I have to tell you that I'm not a HUGE R.E.M. fanatic...just a casual listener. When I bought this I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it and I was proved wrong. This is a fantastic DVD and is worth every cent. R.E.M. plays a good show and this proves it. The crowd is awesome and it is so cool to see Michael Stipe interact with the crowd. The DVD consits of the bands July '03 sold - out show at Germanys out door Bowling Green Stadium and the documentary " A Stirling Performance" based on the bands legendary Stirling Castle performance in Scotland and features live and of course, documentary footage.
The set is:
1. Begin the Begin
2. What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
3. Maps and Legends
4. Drive
5. Animal
6. Daysleeper
7. The Great Beyond
8. Bad Day
9. The One I love
10. All the Way To Reno(you're gonna be a star)
11. Orange Crush
12. Losing My Religion
13. At My Most Beautiful
14. Electrolite
15. She Just Wants To Be
16. Walk Unafraid

17. Man On the Moon
18. Everybody Hurts
19. So fast, So Numb
20. Country Feedback
21. ***Permanent Vacation
22. Imitation Of Life
23. It's the End Of the World As We Know It(and I feel fine)

This is a wonderful DVD and a wonderful concert. I recommend this to anyone who likes R.E.M. I garuntee you'll enjoy it!

I really enjoy these concerts on DVD and have seen a good number of them. I usually find that I need to watch the concert twice to really get into them, but when I bought Perfect Square on a whim and saw it for the first time, I was hooked by the second song. The scenery of the concert location is beautiful, as is the stage itself. The crowd is humongous and energized. The picture and sound are both good, and the performance is fabulous. I was very impressed. It's now an easy favorite.

I was at R.E.M.s first U.S. stop on this recent world tour when they played their first ever Montana concert here in Missoula. It was without a doubt one of the best shows I've ever seen from anyone, anywhere. Ever since that evening I was hoping that the band would release a DVD from the tour so that I could relive this concert over and over. Perfect Square is fantastic! The flow of the set list is perfect, and when they get into their biggest songs (Losing My Religion, Man On The Moon, etc.) the crowds enthusiasm and love for this band just gives you chills. Great great show. My 4 star rating is due to the busy MTV style editing, although it does not annoy the viewing too much. Still, a little too much chop chop for me. A more accurate rating would be 4 9/10 stars. Sit back, crank it up, and enjoy a great R.E.M. show!

This DVD reminded me why I was an REM fan in the first place. Recorded in Germany in 2003, the concert features plenty of hits (Man on the Moon, One I Love), some obscurities (Begin the Begin, Maps & Legends) and some recent songs I hadn't paid enough attention to (Electrolite and Imitation of Life, which sounds like a lost classic)
All three band members look like they're enjoying themselves, but the real focus is of course Michael Stipe. Stipe's in good spirits , interacting warmly with the crowd, and making you wonder why you stopped listening to this band. REM is a band that has been nothing but themselves for over 20 years, and this DVD shows they're still capable of rocking hard and making great new music. The disc also includes a charming documentary about REM's concerts at Stirling Castle in Scotland in 1999. Recommended.

Like the "In Time" tour and CD, the "Perfect Square" disc plays like a greatest hits compilation. All the songs you'd expect to see are here. However, there are a handful of more obscure tracks (including the first official release of the 24-year-old song "Permanent Vacation") to satisfy fans rabid for something different.

The venue chosen for the featured concert is gorgeous. Shots of the fountain and buildings surrounding the Bowling Green in Wiesbaden, Germany make for much more pleasant scenery than the insides of the dark Summit stadium in Atlanta where their last concert video, "Road Movie," was shot. Image quality, too, is wonderful.

The thing that stands out most about "Perfect Square" is that it actually feels like a concert - you can even see the progression of time as the sun sets. R.E.M.'s past concert videos have been noticably pieced together, taking a song from here and another from there. This time, finally, it's a single show, and as such it gives you much more of an idea of what it's like to be there.

The bonus documentary "A Stirling Performance" chronicles the production of a trio of concerts the band performed at Sterling Castle in Scotland during the "Up" tour in 1999. It was quite interesting to see what sort of planning had to go into such a major production. The documentary unfortunately suffers from grainy picture quality and even worse sound quality. It made understanding the residents of the tiny tourist town, already with thick with Scottish accents, very difficult. But it was nice to get to see a bit more concert footage, regardless.

Since Amazon doesn't have a track listing, here's the setlist for the "Perfect Square" concert:

Begin the Begin
What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
Maps and Legends
Drive
Animal
Daysleeper
The Great Beyond
Bad Day
The One I Love
All the Way to Reno
Orange Crush
Losing My Religion
At My Most Beautiful
Electrolite
She Just Wants to Be
Walk Unafraid
Man on the Moon
Everybody Hurts
So Fast, So Numb
Country Feedback
Permanent Vacation
Imitation Of Life
It's The End of the World As We Know It

I immediately snatched this DVD up when it came out, mostly because the tracklisting was very unexpected. Some of my favorite unsung REM songs were performed including "Maps and Legends" and "Begin the Begin", and it was a pleasant surprise that they brought "Permanent Vacation" back from the demo days. I'm assuming that "Narrator (Jacques Cousteau)" is next?

The duration of this video is very entertaining and technically well done. The performance itself is very raw and not as uberpolished as most mainstream live releases are, and what the viewer gets is 100% honest and 100% R.E.M. Definitive for fans of the band and entertaining for those who are more casual listeners.

The performance is five stars, the song selection is five stars (even without Radio Free Europe). The color on this looks incredible on my hdtv and sounds pretty good on the surround. So why three stars? The camera work. I swear they show every face in the crowd lipsyncing. They also flash around and can bring on a case of vertigo. This is a GREAT dvd to keep on in the background, but to me is very irritating to watch because of the camera work. Stipe gives a great performance.

i rented this DVD kind of on a whim, as i'm not a huge r.e.m. fan.. i saw that there were many newer songs which i know well, so i gave it a chance.. thank God i did, because this is easily one of the best concerts i've ever seen. they played all the hits and more.. in all there's about 20 songs in a row!! if you love any r.e.m. songs, you'll be pleased with their rendition here. if you're an r.e.m. fan, this is absolutely a must-own.

watching this made me laugh, made me cry, made me say "wow!", inspired me to make music myself... thanks guys. now i know that r.e.m. is truly a great band.. michael stipe's a rock star.. peter buck is an amazing guitarist.. mike mills is a great bass player and seems like such a nice guy.

if i had to say anything bad about this DVD, it's that there's nothing like a light show or cool visuals... however it doesn't count for much as the band is very interesting to watch and it's a cool view of the outside concert. i love "maps and legends" and their live version of "country feedback" is simply incredible.. but all the songs sound great. thanks R.E.M.!!!

So, not only did R.E.M. play by hometown back in 2003, they did so a week after my birthday, and I missed it. Of course having not been back in Wiesbaden for about a half-century might have something to do with it, but this is the first time I have seen anything of the place other than hostages from Iran or soldiers from the Middle East being brought to the military hospital where I was born, so that was a nice little bonus.

R.E.M. is doing an open air concert in the town of 270,000, located on right (north) bank of the Rhine River that serves as the capital of the Bundesland of Hesse in central Germany. The thing that stands out about this DVD for me is that it sounds like an actual concert, which is not necessarily a good thing, because I often have a hard time understanding what is being sung at concerts. Maybe I should have tried out some of the other audio options, but the sound was just not as crisp as I would have liked. The cinematography is rather straightforward and sedate, especially compared to some of the other concert films I have seen recently (e.g., "U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle").

So the chief attraction here ends up being the music (but do not expect to turn on the closed captioning to get the lyrics so you can sing along with Michael Stipe, because all you get out subtitles for his comments between songs). The play list falls one short of two dozen songs, including what is presented as a pretty long encore, and covers the entire spectrum of R.E.M.'s catalog up to that point. So you get the expected biggies ("Losing My Religion," "Man on the Moon," and Everybody Hurts," complete with raised lighters), along with lesser known song like "So Fast So Numb," and ones that go back to before the beginning in "Permanent Vacation." Stipe keeps alluding to the group's website, which apparently was used to help put together the song selections for the concert.

Stipe is still the one to watch on stage, but then Peter Buck and Mike Mills have never provided any competition in that regard (and even though Buck's playing calls attention to itself a couple of times, even if the camera is still focused on the guy singing most of the time). There is no claim here that this is the best R.E.M. concert film, because it is not. But seeing the boys from Athens perform is never going to be a waste of time. The DVD also includes the mini-documentary "Sterling Performance," which interviews the locals and the band before and after a trio of concerts R.E.M. played at Sterling Castle in July of 1999 (there are only brief clips of the band actually playing; you will get more shots of them setting up and taking down the stage).

Growing up in the 80's there were two groups I semi-worshipped (and still do); R.E.M. and Haircut 100.

Oops, the latter was supposed to read U2. (insert rim shot here)

Anyways, I was lucky enough to see U2 a few times and they always put on a good, lively, interested show. I was only able to see R.E.M. once (Monster Tour), and I was sadly disappointed. They sounded pretty great, but Mr. Stipe was disinterested. He sang half the songs with his back to the audience and seemed as though he wanted the show over with asap.

Maybe I caught him on a bad night, but at least I have this dvd to fall back on when I want to see an R.E.M. that I always wished I'd seen live. He is upbeat, smiling, mingling with the audience AND they (and the dvd) look and sound great. My only complaint is the total lack of any HC100 covers.

I recommend this dvd to any old or new R.E.M. fan. It's $11.99 at Best Buy this week so pick it up.