Adventures in hi-fi... accelerated

I'm just come back from the R.E.M. concert in Milan. I live next to the Arena Civica, 5 minutes walk or so, the shortest trip for a concert I ever made in my life (I've seen R.E.M. live since the concert in Bologna 1999, and once I had a terrible trip to Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium in order to see them, so take it easy about my little walk).

It was a great concert. Most surprisingly for me, it was the re-evaluation of New adventures in hi-fi, the most underestimated album of the band from Athens, Georgia. In the first part of the concert they alternated songs from Accelerate, the new album, and that one, and they gave us a great energy. My favourite performances this night were The great beyond and Man on the moon. Moreover, I was delighted to hear again old time classics like The one I love, Orange crush and Driver 8: some of these songs date more than twenty years ago, but nevertheless they seem new and fresh. This night the sound of the band recalled the I.R.S. years, and the origins of the band: new and old songs were played in the old style, with a notable exception: Drive, which was played exactly in the style you find the original album, Automatic for the people.

So, I was very happy to be here again. And they felt very emotionated being in Italy again, they spoke a little of Italian, and, of course, they thank every man of the staff by his or her own name. That's being professional. The only bad note is about the supporters: Editors are just a British version of Interpol, nothing worth to be remembered, L'Aura are good but nothing to wow to.