| Road Movie | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Video by | ||||
| Released | August 25, 1996 (1996-08-25) | |||
| Recorded | November 18–21, 1995 | |||
| Venue | The Omni,Atlanta,Georgia, United States | |||
| Genre | Alternative rock | |||
| Length | 90:00 | |||
| Label | Warner Reprise Video | |||
| Director | Peter Care | |||
| R.E.M. chronology | ||||
| ||||
| R.E.M. video chronology | ||||
| ||||
| R.E.M. live albums chronology | ||||
| ||||
Road Movie is a documentary-style film by rock groupR.E.M., released on bothVHS andDVD, charting the conclusion of the band's 1995 worldwide tour in support ofMonster, their album released the previous year. Directed byPeter Care, the ninety-minute-long footage features nineteen songs (all but one a montage) performed over the final three nights (November 18, 19 and 21) of the tour, at The Omni inAtlanta,Georgia. Theset-list reads very much like a complete R.E.M. show—gigs on theMonster tour were opened by either "I Took Your Name" or "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" (with the former taking precedence in this case), while the last song of the night was invariably "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" (as it is here). The film is a companion piece to theTourfilm documentary (with a synonymous title), which chronicles the band's 1989 tour on the back of the previous year's albumGreen.
The songs included, by album, are: "The One I Love" and "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" fromDocument; "Orange Crush" as the sole offering fromGreen; "Losing My Religion" and "Country Feedback" fromOut of Time; "Everybody Hurts", "Find the River" and "Man on the Moon" fromAutomatic For The People; "I Took Your Name", "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", "Crush with Eyeliner", "Tongue", "Star 69", "Let Me In" and "Strange Currencies" from the then-newMonster; and "Undertow", "The Wake-Up Bomb" and "Binky the Doormat" from the then-forthcomingNew Adventures in Hi-Fi. "Revolution" was eventually released on theBatman & Robin soundtrack in 1997.
All songs written byBill Berry,Peter Buck,Mike Mills andMichael Stipe.
The performances of "Undertow", "The Wake-Up Bomb" and "Binky the Doormat" were included asb-sides on the "Bittersweet Me" and "Electrolite" singles.
During the performance of "Let Me In",Mike Mills playsKurt Cobain's guitar (upside down because Cobain was left-handed).
Aside from the members of R.E.M., the video also features guest musiciansNathan December,Scott McCaughey, and Australian violinistAmanda Brown. Brown joins the band for "Losing My Religion", "Binky the Doormat", "Strange Currencies", "Find the River" and "Everybody Hurts". For those fans who were unable to make it to any of the dates, it gives an example of the structure of the live show. The piece spotlights filmic backdrops by artists such asJames Herbert,Jem Cohen,Jim McKay,Dominic DeJoseph andLance Bangs. It has also been released in DVD format.
The movie was debuted at the 50thEdinburgh International Film Festival in August 1996 (1996-08). The following month, during outside listening parties in Atlanta,Boston,Chicago,Los Angeles, andNew York, preview showings were projected onto buildings three stories high.
In 2001, to coincide with the release ofReveal, a three-video box set comprisingTourfilm,Parallel andRoad Movie was released in the UK. (This Film Is On replacedRoad Movie in the DVD-format release.)
The 25th anniversary deluxe edition ofMonster, released in 2019, containsRoad Movie inBlu-ray format. The video image and sound is degraded: the video is passed through a strong denoise filter and degraded to 30 progressive frames and stereo 2.0 sound is passed through a compressor.
| Organization | Level | Date |
|---|---|---|
| BPI – UK | Gold | July 22, 2013[1] |
