The biggest tour that R.E.M. had ever embarked on, taking in arenas and stadiums round the globe, was in full flow by March 1995 when the Athens, Georgia quartet rocked up in Switzerland to headline Lausanne megadome Patinoire de Malley. But the Monster jaunt was about to brought to an abrupt halt – midway through the show, drummer and co-founder Bill Berry collapsed. The next day, he was diagnosed with a ruptured brain aneurysm. Speaking to this writer back in 2021, frontman Michael Stipe looked back on one of the most harrowing period in the alt-rock titans’ history.
“We put a good spin on it publicly but the truth is Bill almost died and he almost died more than once,” Stipe recalled. “It was absolutely terrifying. It was truly horrific. We were in the middle of a tour so we were all insanely adrenalized and the tour came to a screeching halt. We were determined to stay there by his side until he was well enough to leave the hospital and walk and talk on his own. He came through - it's truly miraculous. He also happened to have an aneurysm less than five kilometres from the best hospital in the world to have surgery for aneurysms, he was very, very lucky.”
With Berry on the mend, the band all stayed together as he recuperated and they decided their next move. “Bill just wanted to get to the point where he could perform again,” remembered Stipe. “We were, of course, supportive of that but a bit terrified because it was really drastic brain surgery that he had and you know, he looked like the Elephant Man for a while. I mean, it was really very serious surgery. The tour was a nice kind of thing to hold up, as part of his physical therapy and mental therapy, as something that creates a deadline. The doctors approved of him playing drums again and going back on tour and we gave it the necessary amount of time that it needed.”
R.E.M. were back on the road just over two months later, restarting with a headline show at the Shoreline Ampitheatre in the San Francisco Bay Area. “At the end of the show, Bill walked up out from behind the drum kit and we all hugged each other on stage,” Stipe recounted. “I think I burst into tears and cried like a baby, so relieved he made it through an entire show and he was absolutely fine. He was going to be okay.”
That tour would be a last hurrah for Berry, who left R.E.M. after the band had completed work on their next record, 1996’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi. It marked the end of an era for a group who helped to usher alternative-rock into the mainstream.
