Stipe @ The Witchwood Ashton-Under Lyne, February 20th 2004				Review by S-Jo
	Stipe - REM Tribute It was a toss-up between posting this in here or in R.E.M. > Live, but I plumped for here in the end. Stipe are an R.E.M. tribute band, formed in 1996. I went to see them play recently and the venue was full (perhaps 70 people there). Well, without exagerrating, I thought they were pretty amazing. The front-man especially is so much like JMS on stage it's uncanny; even his speaking voice and between-song banter are remarkably similar! And I thought no one could sing and sound like Michael Stipe... but he does a very good job. They don't have any warm-up band, and that must have helped the sound and mix, because it was superb. They played a varied set too, with many of the albums represented. Orange Crush was a particular highlight, I thought; even the spoken section with the megaphone was in there. They also played a couple that R.E.M. do not play themselves, namely Ignoreland and Sidewinder, both of which sounded brilliant. Everyone at the show who had not seen Stipe before seemed pretty stunned by how good they were - I certainly was. The band members are complete R.E.M. fanatics and it shows. Having seen them now, I'm actually surprised that we don't hear a lot more about them. I've long wished to see R.E.M. play a tiny venue like that - I doubt that I ever will! - but seeing Stipe is the next best thing!
	Taken From Murmurs.com (The original page appears to have been moved)