R.E.M. Hello - Photographs By David Belisle

4 Stars / Q Recommends

Rock photography books rarely end up well thumbed. After half a dozen flicks their appeal, to all but the most obsessive fan, often quickly fades. They work best either when they offer a glimpse into another era in the company of an endlessly fascinating artist (hence the volume of 60s Dylan and Beatles tomes) or when the photographer has almost unlimited access to his subject, as with David Belisle’s 192-page document of R.E.M. in the 00’s.

Belisle, a Seattle-based friend of tour manager Bob Whittaker, was first introduced to the band in 2001, quickly bonding with Michael Stipe -as the singer obliquely recalls in his written introduction- over jokes about “late-night food and bad newspaper journalists.” He soon became a member of R.E.M.’s entourage: part court photographer, part Stipes’s PA -the latter role, as he explains in his outro, less about “getting the guy special her juices” and more about “finding the funniest YouTube videos”.

That lightness of touch spreads throughout Hello, a collection of color and B/W shots that veers between artful vérité and high-grade holiday snap. Here we are pre-tour with Stipe in his dark, ‘70s shaded home in Athens, Georgia as he rests on his orange couch in front of two painted theatrical scenery elephants. Later, on the road, we find Mike Mills grinning while playing bass backstage in only his boxer shorts, Peter Buck gently ribbed by his teenage daughter in her caption for a scissor-legged live shot (“Dad doing one of his crazy high kicks”), cameos from Chris Martin and Thom Yorke (the latter perched on a shelf backstage in London sipping beer with Stipe), and page after page of shiny happy goofing.

If R.E.M. have lost some of their mystery in recent years, it doesn’t detract from the sense of occasional drama: particularly the striking black-and-white shot of a post-show Stipe in his dressing gown, eyes closed in meditation, his superhero mask of stage make-up smudged.

Ultimately, though, this is a family album of a tour. Perhaps the most candid shot - aside from the closing one of all three standing in line at a urinal, pissing together - is the trio backstage somewhere smiling and chatting, as comfortable and familiar, as Stipe puts it, as “bumps on a log”. Given admissions of intra-band turbulence during recent years, Hello serves to remind us of how much fun R.E.M. can have being R.E.M.

• (4 out of 5)
• Review by Tom Doyle
• Q Magazine
• Review date: August 2008