Pitchfork

This performance is from the forthcoming R.E.M. LIVE DVD/CD which is the band's first official live album but not their first official live release. That honor belongs to Tourfilm, released on the very primitive VHS medium back in the halcyon days of 1990. Strangely, the latter didn't include "Orange Crush", nor as many jump cuts as this new clip. While the hyperactive editing make it nearly impossible to get a bead on them, the band gives a pretty solid performance, running through the song fairly faithfully. Still, after twenty years, the song itself still holds a few surprises, like the fact that it sounds more relevant and damning now than it did back in 1989 (before the first Gulf War). R.E.M. dresses its protest up in the words of the enemy, with Michael Stipe delivering a stump speech of sorts through a distorting megaphone and Peter Buck playing a guitar riff that could soundtrack napalm explosions. That they can get a full stadium of (granted) fans to clap, sing, and cheer along speaks either to the band's smarts or the crowd's nostalgia.