2 in olde Europe and 1 in Athens at the 40 Watt on April 15 with Elf Power.

Just a heads up.

now if only neutral milk hotel would do the same.

ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Man, I hope I can say "same here". That would be rad.

Talked to a nice lady at the 40 Watt. She informed me that tickets would be available tomorrow morning (saturday 3.5).
By web
or by phone

Halleluah I'm getting tingly over this! Anybody else going?

Holy Mother of Everything Sacred........
I heard about the Europe shows but I didn't know about the 40 WATT!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm there. Period. The number one band I wish I had a chance to see before they broke up. Black Foliage changed my fucking life, man. Anyway......I'm sure this one will sell out quick, with all the kindercore children who i'm sure will be driving from all over the country for this one. Elf Power? Olivia Tremor Control? Its the Grand Summit of the hello kitty/elementary school wannabe crowd.

got me a fistful of tickets!...anybody know where a brother can get a fistful of mushrooms for this show?

i love me some NMH.... but..... *cringes* i've never heard olivia tremor control....

can someone point this poor boy towards some mp3s?



(edit) found some live shows on the elephant6 site.

i dig, and i'd like to see em, especially if them getting back together is a big deal...

(Edited by dontstaylong at 1:38 am on Mar. 8, 2005)

I got my tickets at schoolkids yesterday. I am so excited. By the way, the 40 watt website, as usual, is completely full of untruths. They are sold-out on-line, but they're already selling tickets for the show right now, and not waiting until the 14th or whatever it says.

I am so excited! FINALLY, my whole point of coming to Athens has not been in vain. I may have missed NMH for good, but OTC is still wonderfully fun.

(Edited by Buckley at 10:41 am on Mar. 11, 2005)

I got one too AND one for my reclusive husband. So, for all y'all that question his existence, here's your chance.

I'm very excited b/c I get to see the show and I love Athens for all of the REM worship. Thank you for inviting me James Riot. I really am looking forward to our trip.

olivia temor control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! man they rock. sadly i won't be attending this show.


as for NMH, i think jeff mangum converted to monkness. that's why we never see or hear from him. bet he looks cute in that robe, though!

Actually, I heard he became quite the equestrian. If you know what I mean

That's brilliant.

quite brilliant.

So who ended up at the show after all?

It would have been better for me had I not been feeling like shit amongst other things. I think the next time a rare show like this happens, I'll count myself out. People are so uptight. Just because they travel from indiana to see OTC doesn't mean they have to freak out about getting into the show, it's not my fault your lame ass doesn't have a ticket. Some strange people crawled out of their meth-labs for this show. I think i prefer mellower atmospheres or maybe I'm just becoming more misanthropic in general.

It was cool nonetheless, although sometimes I think Julian Koster's weirdness is more annoying than endearing. Playing plastic snowman is cute and all, but I can't really hear it anyways, nor his makeshift electric banjo. I think he's more into hopping around on stage playing oven racks than anything else. I guess that was the disppointing thing overall. I couldn't really get into it b/c the set up in between each song was so long (and in the meantime I was trying to hold my ground/not puke) and then when they would play they would only play about 2 seconds of a song then make noises that sound great on the record but like nothing but indistinct noise in a real show. I guess it's obvious that they were rusty, but I still enjoyed certain moments a lot.

I liked Elf Power a lot even though they weren't the main attraction and play Athens every weekend. I liked the Wire cover especially.

I was lucky enough to be relinquishing my stand up front to get some fresh air just as the elephant 6 orchestra was marching in from the back, so that was fun.

I probably would have enjoyed this more had i not been feeling like death. I hope that those of you who made the drive enjoyed it more than I did, and maybe you'll have more positive things to say.

Actually, I live in athens and I've never encountered REM worship. I'd propose that people are sick of having their town pegged as that which REM came from, considering many better bands (NMH and Olivia Tremor Control, etc.) have come out of here.

Don't judge R.E.M. as a whole by what they are now. Do you seriously think that Neutral Milk Hotel (with their what? two albums?) and Olivia Tremor Control were better than R.E.M. and their body of work? I'm sorry, but that's laughable.

And I'd bet that if you took a poll of 100 random Athenians, most of them would feel the same way.

I probably couldn't disagree more with Buckley about the show...but that's ok, we can still be friends. What he described is what I feared beforehand- that it would be a bunch of self-indulgent noise with little cohesion. But I thought the show was incredible- they replicated the album tracks really well, which is hard to pull off given all the extra sounds, etc. The best part was the vocals, which so often are secondary at a live show- they kept all the harmonies, sounded great. I actually thought they were really polished, given the kind of music they play, and I was amazed at being able to hear all the little parts but still having a tight overall sound. And my husband that hates live shows thought they sounded great, too. Maybe it was where you were standing, Buckley?

It was nice to see some Nashville folks in the crowd...and Athens has fantastic vegetarian food.

Well, gee, I didn't think I would have to defend liking R.E.M. and notice when others like them. I don't live in Athens. I've only been twice so maybe I am jumping the gun with the whole "R.E.M. worship" thing and I apologize if anyone found that "offensive." Since the band is from Athens, like many other wonderful bands, I just happened to notice more R.E.M. pictures, albums, posters, etc. in Athens than I normally do in my local record stores. I'm sure not every single soul in Athens loves R.E.M. but you definitely see their image in many of the stores you go to. No, I haven't been to every single store in Athens. I just notice when I see R.E.M. related things, that's it. And I happened to notice way more in Athens than any other city I've been to.

And by the way, the Olivia Tremor Control show was wonderful. Very packed show, I was trampled and stepped on several times but when you're short, that happens easily. (See, I branched out and like another band other than R.E.M.)

It probably was exactly where I was standing because I noticed that when I had to move to the back for some fresh air by the door I heard the sound a lot more "completely." I think I'm going to forget about standing near the front any more at shows, which I normally did b/c I'm so short. So now I won't be able to see jack, but I think I'll hear a whole lot better. I was on the right next to the speaker.

I personally prefer NMH and OTC to REM. I think I'm too young to have really gotten into any of REM's earlier stuff besides the same stuff you hear all the time, and I really hate their new stuff which I was exposed to first, and so I never dug any deeper, so I can relate to Chopped Liver. Also, here in Athens, I feel like even though Michael Stipe's almost as "mysterious" as Jeff Mangum (bamboo planted in front of house) people get a lot more freaked out and excited if they see Jeff Mangum in Wuxtry than if they see Stipe at one of his restaurants/bars (man, if otc re-forming brought on this kind of excitement, the return of NMH would bring on mass hysteria). As for who's actually better, according to Athenians, yes, most would say that REM is b/c most sorority girls have actually heard of REM, but that doesn't say much. If you polled the people into the "indie" music scene, I'm sure they'd at least say they would rather sound like NMH or be involved in something like OTC, even if they don't mean it. That's what I would wager at least. For myself, it doesn't seem fair to compare to the two in terms of out-put. I mean, there are lots of people who make only one good piece of art and it's a hell of a lot better than someone who has put out a significant body of work (it's the whole romantic notion of "what could they have accomplished had they lived/continued in their work.."); e.g. Jean Vigo vs. Michael Bay. I'm probably not qualified to answer this just b/c I don't know anything more than surfacey stuff about REM, but I do love NMH and think that they and OTC have/had great potential, despite having no collective "oeuvre." Who cares about such auteurist/ authorship concerns anyways? How un-post-structuralist of us

I think that was the problem to begin with. I wasn't comparing the three bands at all, merely mentioning the fact that I was in heaven after seeing so much R.E.M. related-stuff in Athens. I own both the NMH albums have both OTC albums. They are all amazing. I don't think there is any way to compare these three bands because they are so fantastic on so many different levels. Sure you could compare/contrast them if you wanted to, but I wouldn't/didn't on this message board. I've already got my students who make fun of me, don't need it here too.

My god, oh how this show rocked me. I just wish people weren't so afraid of going apeshit at shows. The majority of the crowd seemed bored. The definite highlite was joining the tail end of the jazz funeral procession, as if I was supposed to be there, and securing a much better spot in the crowd. Dissapointed not to hear Love Athena, Hilltop Procession, and A Place We Have Been

What's the name of the Wire song they played?

I'm likewise far from an REM expert, and I recognize that REM has been more influential & long-lasting. But, I'd argue that the Kindercore/ Elephant 6/ bands as a group do have a collective oeuvre, and that it's important in its own right. The combining of talents in those bands is amazing & they produced some very innovative & original music. I really like that there was a whole huge group of talented young people that was willing to work on each other's stuff, and that, as a group, they made better things than they could have on a solo basis. Sure, sometimes it could be crappy or self-indulgent, but on the whole it was very high quality & very fun to listen to. Kind of makes me think of all you musician people in Nashville, and hope that you guys eventually get recognized as a whole as well. I nominate Keith for the role of Robert Schneider, although I guess he'll have to get himself a studio.

Reuters