THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100294
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Music review
SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Michael Stipe began R.E.M.'s first Hampton Roads concert in nearly six years as the life of the party.
Emerging with a lamp shade covering his head, he quickly discarded it to belt out ``What's the Frequency, Kenneth?''
The sense of humor that has been intermittent and that he has displayed throughout the life of the band has rarely been as evident as it was Monday night at Hampton Coliseum.
Stipe was not only funny, he was often wrily touching in his between-song comments. ``This is where we all are. This is where you are, and this is what we're doing right now, and that's pretty cool'' was the introduction to one new song. He also dedicated ``Losing My Religion'' - one of the group's most affecting hits - to everyone in the crowd.
That near-sellout audience was obviously delighted at this high level of communication. Hearing most of the evening's songs, drawn largely from the band's three 1990s albums, they were often in a state of rapturous excitement.
Those new songs that appeared in the 90-minute set were a sign not only of the band's confidence but also of its continued creativity.
The rumbling drum thunder of ``Wake Up Bomb'' made the tune sound more impressive than in its recent performance on MTV's Video Music Awards Special. Its Lou Reed-esque vocals and lyrics made one of the band's strongest connections ever to this major influence.
``Under Tow'' was the noisiest of the unreleased material, while ``Revolution'' was a lively send-up of alternative music history and trends.
As part of R.E.M.'s continued emotional accessibility, Stipe has been singing less and less obliquely about relationships and sex roles. His words were frequently underscored by mock-banal and sometimes sensuous films projected behind the stage.
These were, at times, nearly as intriguing as the band's full-scale video clips.
One of the show's most transcendent moments, though, came with a type of outreach between performer and audience that video images can't surplant.
At the height of ``Man on the Moon,'' Stipe essayed an Elvis-style twitch as the song's chorus hit and a fan's tossed T-shirt landed on the stage as the crowd roared. Before the tune's end, even Stipe and normally diffident bassist Mike Mills were smiling.
That was spiritually both near and far from the wrenching nature of the concert's first two encore numbers.
``Let Me In,'' Stipe's tribute to Kurt Cobain, was a hornet's nest of roiling guitar and feeling, which was then resolved in ``Everybody Hurts,'' perhaps the closest thing to an anthem this rock decade has yet given us.
These were a natural capper to R.E.M.'s profoundly satisfying show.
KEYWORDS: CONCERT REVIEW by CNB