And in the effort to keep up the REM related posts in recent times, last weekend, I went to see the band at Manchester’s cricket ground, the scene of the earlier cricket and later drunken stupor while trying to watch England do something on the field.

Now normally, as you would expect a manly stallion such as the Lord of Leisure, he would have been accompanied by a playboy model, or failing that, a cheap group of prostitutes who are more than happy to be paid by the hour for standing on a field filled with drunk people.

However on this occasion it was not to be, due to laziness (a true sign of being the Lord of Leisure) the decision was made to take someone else along.

Now, we cannot just bring this person on without some grander introduction because this is a person who helped make this all possible. So we’ll steal the top gear introduction: Some say that the big bang was started by a noise coming from her arse, and that she eats Jehovah’s witnesses who dare knock on her door.

Please welcome onto the blog for the first ever time in photo form: Mum.

And suddenly the mystery of why the Lord of Leisure is the way he is not a mystery…

Now already I can sense the tumbleweed of doom floating through the background in many minds out there in Internetland already thinking “Paul, you excellent person who deserves at some point to be the world’s strongest millionaire, you took your mum?”

Yes, it may not be the coolest thing on the planet to do, and frankly to even admit this on a publicly available stage will kill off whatever reputation I had built up. I had hoped to be thought of being a loveable rapscallion of the underworld by now, but beggars can’t be choosers as to what people think of them.

But before going further, I would like to address this point if I may.

Why is it considered a social faux-pa to include your parents in some of your life at all? They do lots of naughty and eventually squeeze you out, dress you up like a Christmas tree for a few years, then watch you make lots of mistakes of which leads them to wonder if you weren’t actually fine like the doctors told them when they dropped you.

The point is, is that they have been there since the beginning of your life, and yes we all get to the point where we don’t listen to them, pretending we know better when all the while we are just guessing and hoping for the best, just like they did years ago.

This endless cycle has been going on in various forms since humans stopped throwing poo at each other and tried to walk upright. Well, we are walking upright, but the poo thing is still a going concern.

But just because we spread our wings, run away and try to do things ourselves that doesn’t have to mean we just cut ourselves off from the birth givers altogether, far from it, at this stage, it should be a platform of equals, where all parties concerned can enjoy things, more often than not without getting on each other’s breasts.

My my, it appears I need to get off the soapbox and return to more favourable debauchery.

Actually, no let’s put one foot back on the box, as it turns out we were not the only ones there who had their old people with them, for your consideration, please view exhibit 1A:

Of all people to run into, we wandered into a pair from the local area, mother and daughter in this case, but this was more of a case of “Boyfriend silliness” than anything else, but nevertheless it’s something to help my already over explained case.

Turns out they were nutty, which was nice as we talked on about something, The V festival came up over and over, and then we were playing “let’s get closer to the front” as all people try to do to get a good view of the outside stage which was set up at one end of the ground.

Now as typical at such events, you find overpriced food and drink available for all to consume, as well as the little stall selling various bits of tat designed to make the weak willed part with their earned wages more than the ticket price already had done.

But they also saw fit to have next to nothing opened, which meant huge queues for practically, everything. It was a beautiful summer day, most uncommon in Manchester to be fair, so naturally you tend to be thirsty in such situations.

25 minutes later, we came back with tea and coffee costing the gross national product of Ethiopia.

Never mind, we weren’t there to enjoy the beverages and marvel at the modern toilets, we were there for some fantastic music.

First off on the stage to get people in the mood for dancing around like apes, was the Guillotines or gummy bears or something like that, they were on the stage for a while, and basically more fun would have been had counting arm pit hairs, my god, these people were singing songs which would make you wonder if playing with knifes was a fun pastime.

So off they went and suddenly we were happy again.

Then the second set came onto the stage, and I was rather happy to see it was the Editors, whom I had seen on more than one occasion beforehand while walking in various mud piles, and each time they had always performed at their best, singing great songs which just simply make you want to bounce.

And bounce people did:

The problem I guess, is that I’ve heard them on a few occasions now and I still haven’t a clue what any of their songs are called, nor who any of them are, you just hear the name editors and basically by association of the wandering madness of the past, you think “ah they’re good”, and good they were, belting out a number of tunes as they had done before, but no real new ones.

You kind of wonder about these support acts and how they perform as basically you have to wonder at the back of their heads somewhere, are they thinking “no one’s come here to see us, why are we even bothering? F**k it let’s switch the lights off and go home” It’s got to be a little bit demoralising though, especially for the first act, who made about as big an impression as someone farting next to a speeding train.

REM came out on stage and came out strong with song after song from their recent album, almost to the point where they wanted to prove that they can still kick arse and chew bubble gum. They’ve been doing this for over 25 years, but hell judging from what they were doing on stage, you wouldn’t think that.

I suppose to talk about them in this way, it’s more difficult as being a fan of them for quite a long time, it’s easier to just turn into a special person and jump up and down screaming some garbage about wanting their babies, as some in the crowd were on that night.

But it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, as the accompanying mother of the daughter was bored silly, to the point, I dare say she wanted to go home as quickly as possible. Someone said to me, that it was difficult to not like any of their songs as they had done at least one that everyone liked in their time, but no, this was not true.

I also have to remark on the fact that they seem to be getting more annoyed at the current American administration as quite a lot of their recent songs seem to bear out their annoyance at such things like the classicly titled “Ignoreland” which I can’t recall ever being played before and “Man-sized Wreath” which is only 2 and a half minutes long, but is utter brilliance.

You can’t however stop thinking about how many more songs they can swing out the door about the current administration without getting dull and what happens when good old dubba bush is out the door? Where will they get their annoyance from then, start whining about the price of petrol? Despite this, it appears that the American annoyance lives on as far as the crowd goes, having cheered at every point about all this.

They did some classics as well, and I for one am glad they aren’t giving up playing Losing My Virginity, er, I mean Religion, as every time you hear it live, it still is as good today as it was back when the band gave man-birth to it many years ago.

And this time round, it was an even better experience despite many people wanting to push back and forth all the while. For one, we were able to actually see the band perform as opposed to the time back in Hyde Park, where you paid £180 for the same position, with everyone else fenced off half a mile away just because they didn’t want to be ripped off.

Two, the band’s performance was better than 2005, which was a hard thing to do really, considering that was at the height of their tour. Michael Stipe’s voice wasn’t broken in any way, and was bang on tune all the while, with Mike and Peter playing at their best without even making it look like an effort. They could have just started playing with their feet while getting a massage and you got the impression it would still be as good.

And lastly, it seemed to be slightly more personal, as they appeared to be enjoying it a little bit more than usual.

All in all, right now, you will catch them at their best. However long that lasts, you’ve got to go and see them. Why aren’t more bands these days like this? I can’t count that many who are as big and still keep going for as many years, and still manage to amaze.

Frankly, it was a great way to end the weekend away from the trials and tribulations of Broken Britain, even if there were other things to forget, such as the wait home, or the b******ds who like pushing through crowds and being arseholes, but hey! Why be glum?