Tuesday, August 1
Berlin

We're playing in this beautiful amphitheatre built as part of the 1936 Olympic games for the boxing. I lie down in the sun.

R.E.M. arrive. We say hello. I'm cool. This happens all the time. Bertis Downs, their lawyer, comes up and says, "Hey man, you got the stuff." I have no idea what he's talking about. After the show, R.E.M. have this record company thing in an old army barracks set in the hills. The entrance is lined with inflatable dinosaurs. They get awarded all these specially commissioned bonkers discs. Just for being R.E.M., basically. They all pose and smile and do the whole political bit and are extremely nice. I'm shocked. It seems you have to be nice to people forever. I may as well get used to my cracked smile now.
I'm just completely hyper in the presence of all this. Find myself gurgling like a baby who is being tickled. Kick an apple around the floodlit garden until I can string a sentence together again. Feel 50 feet tall. Shit, shit, shit. This is R.E.M. and they really like us. No, I mean they REALLY like us. They're not just being nice. When someone you really admire gives you something like that, your shoulders get a little lighter, you feel a little stronger. Forever.