"We are young despite the years we are concern/ We are hope despite the times." So sings Michael Stipe on R.E.M.'s classic "These Days," the band's statement of purpose and a tune that had been rattling in my head a full week prior to an early summer gig at the University of California, Berkeley campus. The song rocks, no questions asked, but it's also slightly cringe-inducing, should you picture it played by three middle-aged hipsters - one frumpy (Peter Buck), one bald (Stipe) and one timelessly nerdy (Mike Mills). It also begs the question, are these guys full of it? Twenty years on, are once-ballsy claims now as hollow as one of Buck's signature Rickenbackers? In short, does R.E.M. still matter?
The composition of the Greek Theatre crowd - a mix of moneyed oldsters, their kids and a legion of professors - on June 1 suggested that the answer to this question was a rhetorical "no," not as a rock 'n' roll band anyway.
The next two hours suggested otherwise.
After a blistering set from The National and a set from Modest Mouse that did little to dispel their association with other self-conscious rodents, the college-rock turned adult-contemporary icons hurtled headlong through a 28-song sampling of one of this generation's sharpest catalogs, pausing only to renounce the president, early-tour sluggishness and, oddly, the pairing of wine with fried chicken.
They played loud and fast, covering nine of the 11 tracks from their guitar-excavating latest album, "Accelerate." Not all of these new tunes screamed "classic" - only "Living Well Is The Best Revenge" would make a best-of playlist - but when stacked beside pop-culture staples like "The One I Love," "Orange Crush" and "Man On The Moon," they didn't sound out of place, either.
Though his head was flecked with gray, Stipe sang with a familiar guttural baritone that revealed season rather than age. Likewise, bassist Mike Mills, forever frozen in time, took the stage by way of the Reagan Era, lending transcendent siren-pitched vocals to encore renditions of "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)" and the acid-rain anthem "Fall On Me."
Does R.E.M. still matter? Walking down the amphitheater steps with 8,500 other shiny, happy people, I felt guilty for even asking.
