R.E.M. Invites Fans to Document Dublin Shows

by lickyourheart | July 9, 2007 at 09:41 am

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Prior to playing a week of shows at Dublin's Olympia Theatre, R.E.M. decided that they wanted their fans to be able to track and cover the shows via a Web 2.0 format. The resulting site, R.E.M. Dublin, is a thorough look through fans eyes at a groundbreaking way to present a band to the masses. Leave it to Michael Stipe to innovate quietly in ways other artists never could.

R.E.M. finished its weeklong residency at Dublin's Olympia Theatre last night (July 5) with a set that featured 11 new songs as well as older, much more obscure material, some of which hadn't been played live in decades.

Coupled with a heavy dose of audience particpation, Guinness a plenty, not to mention the continued debut of the 11 new songs which, by week's end sounded like classic R.E.M., this show, as Bertis said in his postcard from Dublin earlier today, was a "cracker" which will surely rank up there with one of the best in the band's illustrious history.

R.E.M. in Dublin: REM went Web 2.0 during their Dublin shows and allowed the fans, the band and the label (me) to collaborate on a site. It was very interesting in that not many people (ultimately) were in Dublin, and yet for everyone, it felt that we were all there.

Through YouTube, audio, photos, the Murmurs.com boards and blogging, the experience carried worldwide so that at the end of the 5 day stint, all of us were smiling, whether in Dublin or not.