The One With Michael Stipe

So the other day, Tuesday to be exact, we went to Oslo. The place where polar bears and penguins stroll the streets. We had bought tickets for a show with one of our long time favourite bands R.E.M. Now it would have it that the tickets had been bought through their fan club so we were able to get inside a good thirty minutes or so before the rest of the mob. This handed us the possibility of placing our gorgeous selves right at the front left side of the stage. The left side and not center because someone had to buy a coke! Not mentioning any names here.

So there we were.

This was, however, almost three hours before R.E.M. would start their set and I, being tired due to only two hours of sleep the night before along with walking around Oslo during the day, was not really up to standing much so I planned leaving the others to find a more comfortable spot and possibly some fascist expensive beer.

I didn’t move.

The Thrills opened the show at half past seven and played around 45 minutes I believe. After a short break R.E.M. came on.

Some girls from some godforsaken city in the northern parts of Norway asked us to move so they could stand in front. We were rather perplexed at their uninhibited request but politely wasted our time and asked why.

“It’s her birthday”, the one girl said pointing to her friend, “and we traveled so many miles to get to the show.” (add more whining).

We flew in from Denmark but then again.

I told her to shut up and when she spouted more useless information in my head I gestured to her that I couldn’t hear what she said because of the music and turned around. That was when I decided definately not to move an inch. They would suffer later on.

After or during (can’t remember really, it was such a wild night) the third song Stipe came over to our side and he bloody waved at me like he knew me. I’m sure I was immediately the envy of the entire surrounding army of hardcore R.E.M. fans, whining girls and what not. Anyway the show was just getting started.

Much R.E.M. ensued. Let’s fast-forward to the last song of the show which was Man On The Moon.

At the end of the song Michael came down to the security pit. Obviously everyone went wild and tried to touch him. The girls behind us more or less jumped on my back but I was fearless. My arms went out and when Stipe came down to our area I managed to grab his right arm. He then, much to my total shock, stopped and walked up on a ledge soldered to the railing we stood by. Right in front of me.

So what else to do than hold around him (in a totally non-gay-but-you’re-a-cool-rockstar-so-I’m-going-to-do-it-anyway kind of way of course) while he continued singing. After maybe five or ten seconds he went on his merry way.

I’m not sure if we locked eyes but it was quite a close call.