Event

This Is Not A Show

(Vincent Moon,France, 2009, DVD, 59min)

This Is Not A Show captures the best moments from the band's working rehearsals at Dublin's fabled Olympia club during which singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills Stipe tested out new songs for R.E.M.s 2008 studio album Accelerate. The film, which includes concert and backstage footage, ventures back to July 2007 when R.E.M. set up camp at the venerable Olympia Theatre in Ireland's capital city and tested new material over five nights before fired-up, capacity crowds comprised of fan-club members, friends, family, and fans from all over the world who were privy to R.E.M.'s so-called experiment in terror, as guitarist Peter Buck puts it. We were just trying to do something we hadn't done before," Buck says, "which meant there was no relaxing during the set. Every second we were playing something we didn't know all that well. Which was kind of good there were all kinds of terror elements going on during that show."