At the time of this concert in late 1988, R.E.M. had become big stars, thanks in part to their hit "The One I Love" from the year before. The Indigo Girls, by contrast, were just starting to make it. They released their debut album, "Strange Fire," in 1987. But it came out on a small record label and didn't get much notice at the time. Their next album, "Indigo Girls," would come out in early 1989 and would go double Platinum, meaning sales of over two million copies in the U.S. But that was still in the future.
Stipe and R.E.M. started out playing in small clubs in Athens, Georgia, and they kept ties to the area after becoming famous. The Indigo Girls also were largely based in Athens as their career gathered momentum. For instance, that's where they recorded their "Strange Fire" album. So Stipe became aware of them, and wanted to help them succeed. When their "Indigo Girls" album came out, Stipe had prominent vocals on the song "Kid Fears," and the other members of R.E.M. played on the song "Tried to Be True." This R.E.M. helped break that album.
Furthermore, both Stipe and the Indigo Girls almost never co-wrote songs with outsiders. But the three of them wrote the song "I'll Give You My Skin" together. It came out on a benefit album called "Tame Yourself" in 1991, as well as the Indigo Girls compilation album "Rarities" much later.
Both "Kid Fears" and "I'll Give You My Skin" were performed at this concert. However, neither of those songs had been released yet, so this connection between Stipe and the Indigo Girls was probably a big surprise to most of the people in the audience.
Furthermore, most of the other songs performed would have been a surprise to anyone in the audience who had all the R.E.M. and Indigo Girls albums released up until that point. In addition to the songs mentioned above, "Prince of Darkness" was the only other Indigo Girls original, and that one also wouldn't be released until the "Indigo Girls" album came out. Two R.E.M. songs were played as well, but they were obscure. "Hairshirt" came out on the band's "Green" album, but that album wouldn't be released until a couple of months after this concert. So did "Untitled (The Eleventh Untitled Song)." But that was a secret bonus track at the end of the album. It's actually be officially referred to by three different names in different sources, since the title isn't mentioned on the album at all. In addition to "Untitled" and "The Eleventh Untitled Song," it's also been known as "11."
So that means there wasn't a single original song performed here that had been officially released by either act at the time of this concert. But most of the songs, seven out of 11, were covers. Here's a quick list of the original artists for each of those songs:
Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
First We Take Manhattan - Leonard Cohen
Midnight Train to Georgia - Gladys Knight & the Pips
Harpers - Hugo Largo
All Along the Watchtower - Bob Dylan
Dark Globe - Syd Barrett
Summertime - George Gershwin
What I like most about this concert is that it wasn't just a case of "I'll play my song and you play your song," like the Songwriters' Circle albums I've been posting recently. The three musicians (and it was just Stipe, Ray, and Saliers on stage, with acoustic guitars) genuinely collaborated on most of the songs. In early 1989, the Indigo Girls would be the opening act for a high profile R.E.M. tour. On most nights, Stipe would come out and add his vocals to "Kid Fears." But it was just that one song. They never collaborated in public like this before or since, at least as far as I know.
They played in front of a small audience, as you can hear in the recording. (It was a benefit for P.E.T.A. - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, with a bunch of other local musical acts on the bill.) So we're lucky to get any recording of this at all, and it's only an audience boot. But it happens to be a very good sounding one. It may have come from the audio feed of a video, because one can find a video of this concert on YouTube.
However, the boot had one big problem: a constant level of hiss throughout the entire recording. Luckily for us, though, audio editing technology has come a long way in recent years. I used the "Denoise" option in the MVSEP program for all the songs. It worked like magic, completely wiping away the hiss. So this sounds much better than ever before, in my opinion, basically as good as a soundboard boot.
Again, I just want to highlight how unique and special this concert was. I looked up Stipe's concert performance history at setlist.fm. Until today, as I write in 2026, he has never performed in concert as long as this without R.E.M. backing him up. That's true even with R.E.M. breaking up in 2011. He rarely performed without R.E.M. at all, and when he did, it was always for special occasions, like tribute concerts, where he sang a few songs at most. It's too bad these three people didn't perform together more often, because it's a really interesting combination.
This album is 53 minutes long.
01 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
02 Ain't No Sunshine (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
03 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
04 First We Take Manhattan (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
05 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
06 Hairshirt (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
07 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
08 I'll Give You My Skin (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
09 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
10 Midnight Train to Georgia (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
11 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
12 Prince of Darkness (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
13 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
14 Untitled [The Eleventh Untitled Song] (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
15 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
16 Kid Fears (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
17 Harpers (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
18 talk (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
19 All Along the Watchtower (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
20 Dark Globe (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
21 Summertime (Indigo Girls & Michael Stipe)
https://bestfile.io/en/k7QFujm0Kg5HsSD/file
The cover photo is from this exact concert, taken from a video of it I found on YouTube. I feel bad, because I was only able to include Michael Stipe and Emily Saliers, leaving out Amy Ray. I wanted to include all three. However, there were multiple cameras, and the one focusing on Stipe and Saliers had very different lighting and angle than another camera focusing on Saliers and Ray. Putting them together just didn't look right.
Awesome. I saw them on tour together back in the 90s. By the way, the band is Hugo Largo, not Huge Largo
ReplyDeleteThank you! wasn't aware this even took place
ReplyDeleteLooks interesting. Thank you.
ReplyDelete