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(This is a guest post by Athens, Georgia writer Gordon Lamb.  This piece appeared in an abridged format in Flagpole Magazine.   Everybody please welcome Gordon and show some FDL love!) 

By the end of the ceremony honoring the 2006 inductees to the Georgia Music Hall Of Fame, one thing was clear: R.E.M. can turn the most formal of events into a party in the space of a second. Such was the case in the Thomas B. Murphy ballroom of the World Congress Center on Saturday, September 19, 2006.

The event, hosted politely by WSB-TV news anchor Monica Kaufmann Pearson and Leslie Fram of Atlanta’s WNNX-FM (99X), had, by the time R.E.M. was inducted, some prime moments. It was a particular thrill to see producer Quincy Jones and, to a lesser extent, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons onstage honoring Atlanta-based superstars Jermaine Dupri and Dallas Austin. The performance by The Flipper Temple AME Church choir was wonderful. The video tribute to late songwriter Felice Bryant was terrifically well-researched. Through all this, though, the event remained reserved, and, while not sedate, certainly lacking in anything one normally associates with anything close to rock and roll.

Then, as Pearson announced with a beaming smile, “I think everyone here is excited for this next performance,” and Fram remarked how thrilled she was to introduce them, R.E.M. ran onstage and Michael Stipe warned, “This is going to be loud” before giving the now-expected but always to-the-point statement, “We are R.E.M. and this is what we do.”

What R.E.M. did was blast full volume into “Begin The Begin”, which at least one person described as the band ripping the song a new, um, orifice. This was the R.E.M. that had worked so hard for so many years, playing pizza parlors and small clubs and steadily releasing roughly an album a year that was onstage right then. After seeing the fleshed out and augmented R.E.M. multiple times since Bill Berry left in 1997, it was wonderful witnessing the original four onstage together.

Adjunct member Scott McCaughey joined on mandolin for the next number, “Losing My Religion,” which, for all of the band’s accomplishments previous to its 1991 release, was really the song that broke them into enormity. Michael Stipe remarked that their final song was one that, and I’m paraphrasing here, spoke to people being brave in the face of adversity and staying true to their beliefs and dedicated it to the recently passed former governor of Texas, Ann Richards. It was, of course, “Man On The Moon.” During the three-song set, the crowd, which had remained seated except for occasional moments during the night, was suddenly up on its feet, dancing and cheering throughout the songs, and (at least some) loudly singing along. The moment was incredible and, in all honesty, one I will not forget.

After playing, the band was formally inducted by former Georgia Senator and current board member of the Export-Import Bank of The United States, Max Cleland. The broad smile on Cleland’s face while inducting R.E.M. could have lit the entire room and, while it’s a sure bet his speech was written by someone else (as I have every confidence that the term “post-punk” is not in his vocabulary), his pride at being the one chosen to do this task was evident. As R.E.M. accepted their induction, the crowd once again threatened to deafen innocent bystanders which its cheers. Michael Stipe gave the band’s acceptance speech and spent much time speaking, quite correctly, of the band’s unique position as a group that was able to cause a shift in thinking when considering bands from South Georgia in particular. Expressing the awe of the band to be included in the list of artists ranging from Little Richard to, per Peter Buck’s suggestion, Blind Willie McTell.

The high point of Stipe’s speech, though, the one that will be remembered after everything else is forgotten, was when he said, “…And we’re not from the ATL, we’re from the ATH!” The reaction from the Athens attendees, many of whom were neatly seated together just past stage left, was enormous. And, yeah, it reads a little less oomph-y than it sounded, but it was much more than Stipe saying, “Hey, we’re still R.E.M. from the block.” It was Stipe clearly articulating that, yes, the band is honored and humbled to be part of the great tradition of Georgia music, but, at the same time, the uniqueness of Athens, and its peculiar place within that tradition, has so much to do with how R.E.M. both came to be and how they have defined themselves throughout the past 26 years.

The next inductee was the needs-no-introduction Gregg Allman. Although much quieter in person than I expected him to be, his beautiful solo-acoustic rendition of the Allman Brothers Band classic “Melissa” was wonderfully played and sweetly delivered.

After performing “Georgia on My Mind,” as each year’s inductee in the “Performer” category has done for the past 28 years, he was joined by R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry for another classic Allman’s song, “Midnight Rider.” And you can’t tell me that, Buck notwithstanding, the Mills and Berry, both from Allman’s hometown of Macon, Georgia, weren’t particularly thrilled to be doing this. The crowd had, by this time, dispensed with nearly all formalities, and danced and drank and, basically, witnessed history happening.

I drove back home late that night, and the only record I played, at a probably dangerous volume, was the newly released R.E.M. compilation And I Feel Fine. And then somewhere on an empty stretch of Highway 78, I realized clearly that for all R.E.M.’s fame and accomplishment and recognition that has caused them to become common language among rock fans, the band, like every great group, also still exists as private fetish. For every instance of seeing the bands name preceded by “Grammy-winning,” I, along with many others, have an entire catalog of private memories and internal analyses associated with their music that have nothing to do with glossy photographs or MTV Video Awards. Or even the Georgia Music Hall Of Fame.

Although many of the folks from Athens stayed over in Atlanta and, in pure Athens style, partied deep into the morning, I was glad that I left town for my solitary drive home. Pulling onto Atlanta highway from 316, as “Gardening At Night” poured from my cheap car stereo, I knew that, for me, after seeing what I saw, there was no other way I would have wanted this night to end.

Gordon Lamb