R.E.M. was a band with a predicament going into Saturday night’s show at Big Cypress Seminole Reservation.

Conscious of the pull of a glorious past, but eager to play new songs, these literate Southerners who midwifed the culture of alternative rock had sometimes contradictory tasks before them at the Langerado festival: Give the people what they want and know; and persuade them that new songs almost nobody has heard yet belong on the set list.

R.E.M. aced the balancing test. If anything, playing the short, punchy numbers from Accelerate — due April 1 — helped the band put a spark in the stand-bys (Drive, The One I Love) as well as some less-appreciated songs from recent albums (Electrolite, Imitation of Life).

Flush with the energy of Accelerate-d songs, and framed by current events, 1989’s Orange Crush (“Follow me/Don’t follow me … We are agents of the free”) sounded like a fresh grenade lobbed at wartime mentality. Singer Michael Stipe - almost cocky at times - also did some less coded politicking, wearing a t-shirt that said “OBAMA.”

The five-piece touring version of R.E.M. opened with the familiar and then dove right into the unkown: The quintet followed What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?, the power-chord mash from 1994's Monster album, with an uptempo garage-rocker from Accelerate — title not announced. Separated by 14 years, the two sounded like jukebox siblings — think Robert Palmer’s inseparable one-two-three of Sailing Shoes, Hey Julia and Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley.

R.E.M. rolled out its own classics in a 22-song set: Losing My Religion was a interlude of quiet — but anxious quiet, in keeping with Stipe’s keening vocal and Peter Buck’s edgy mandolin lines. Man on the Moon was a warm, crowd-embracing close to the performance.

The band reached even farther back to its distant, pastoral ‘80s songbook with Southern Central Rain and Fall on Me.

But Accelerate kept poking its nose into everything, pushing the tempo and promoting attitude. Stipe sang the title track like a panicked CEO: “Where is my cartoon escape hatch?” The apocalyptic I’m Gonna DJ (“the end of the world”) could have been R.E.M.’s answer to the “woo-hoo,” over-the-cliff holler of Blur’s Song 2.

After awhile, albums can become pretexts for touring, and bands on a long hitless streak often become more proficient than ever at playing those great old songs. But that surrender to the road is a kind of death - witness the Eagles - and R.E.M. doesn’t sound like it’s going gently into that good night.

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It was a very good evening for R.E.M. They were in fine form - confident and engaged. They played several songs - seven or eight - from the forthcoming 11-track CD "Accelerate," which a friend of mine praised as sounding "like old R.E.M. on speed." Longer post tomorrow; my fingers and my laptop are fuh-fuh-freezing.

1) What's the Frequency, Kenneth?
2) (I'm pretty sure this was from Accelerate - an uptempo, garage-rock of a song)
3) Bad Day
4) Drive
5) Fall on Me
6) Hollow Man (from Accelerate)
7) Southern Central Rain
8) Orange Crush
9) Accelerate (from Accelerate ... duh)
10) Imitation of Life
11) Man-Sized Wreath (from Accelerate)
12) Begin the Begin
13) Electrolite
14) Houston (from Accelerate)
15) Losing My Religion
16) Horse to Water (from Accelerate)
17) Walk Unafraid
18) The One I Love
encores
19) Supernatural Superserious (from Accelerate)
20) Auctioneer
21) I'm Gonna DJ (from Accelerate)
22) Man on the Moon

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I left the festival around midnight last night on account of camping difficulties (a tent that wouldn't obey) and the lack of room for lying down in my car. What I've heard since is that another front blew through late-late or early-early this morning -- no tornadoes, but lots of wind and water. I'm told power went out again, cellphones weren't cooperating; and rumors of at least one weather-related set cancellation have followed me back here. I'm having a little trouble verifying anything at the moment.

But it's after 6 p.m. and piano man Ben Folds is entertaining a big, happy-looking crowd at the Sunset stage, which backs up to the media tent, which no longer exists, as such, because it's been blown down by the wind. We indoor-prone mediafolk still have our chairs, tables, wi-fi and power strips, but we're exposed to the elements, and it is getting a bit chilly out here.

I got stuck on inbound I-75 around 3:15 p.m. not a half mile from the Snake Road exit, because somebody on Snake drove their vehicle into a telephone pole and knocked it over, along with the power line it was holding up. Traffic on the Alley stopped for about 50 minutes, during which time cars backed up, people got out and chatted with friends and strangers. One couple I met contemplated ditching their car and riding their fold-up bicycles the remaining 15 miles to the festival.

But we all got rolling again. I passed a utility repair vehicle with what appeared to be a large wooden replacement pole lashed to its top, and the fallen pole looked very much like it had been hit and crumpled. No word on the motorist involved. Ninety minutes or so later, including one grueling 2-mph slog along the last two miles of gravel into the fest, and I was back, wondering whether I should have just slept in the car by any means necessary.

For any and all who've sought weather-related info from me, my apologies. I haven't been here fulltime and my communications are limited to blogging and e-mail because my cellphone doesn't function in here, so I can't snare a Langerado publicist on command. Also, I don't expect to be here tomorrow; I'm leaving Day 4 to the Langerado faithful. My plan is to get back to town and stay there.

Thievery Corporation, a duo from D.C. that plays exquisitely cool, globally conscious techno
(imagine a foreign aid worker in a tuxedo ) is coming up soon, and tonight at 9:30 p.m. - conditions permitting, it's R.E.M., whose presence here seems to have caused a definite uptick in attendance.

I'll post after I've seen those performances, unless something blogworthy happens before then.

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It amused the Beastie Boys to no end to find themselves playing in a Florida swamp. They couldn't stop talking, or rapping, about "the 'Glades" on Friday night at Big Cypress. There was even a call for "every alligator, every horse ... to put a finger in the air and scream."

The Beasties, in their Langerado debut, drew a big crowd to the main stage and earned a mostly enthusastic response. Concertgoers at the back of the scrum were more curious than invested; the screams came from closer in to the platform and its gigantic companion video screen.

The New York trio, joined by DJ Mixmaster Mike and keyboardist Money Mark, got off to a balky start, with the P.A. clipping at first, before they locked down and played to the occasion. The 90-minute set was a mash-up of hits, b-sides and - because Langerado made its name as a jam-band festival - some longform, funky suites. Money Mark doodled like Lalo Schifrin circa '75 on electric piano, and later there was a spacey instrumental anchored by what sounded like the low vibration of a didgeridoo.

Along with some of their signatures - rhyme-passing, three-way raps including Body Movin', Super Disco Breakin' and Intergalactic, the Beastie Boys played what might have been one of their early, pre-rap punk songs. They finished with a Beastie favorite: Sabotage, its choir of howls and fuzzed-out bass groove coming a little more naturally, and easily, to them than the mellow instrumentals.

Still, there amongst the 'gators and the neo-hippie-rave-kid glow sticks, the Beastie Boys made sense. Langerado's outlook is expansive enough to welcome just about any band short of GWAR.

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We're all familiar with the transforming power of technology, yadda-yadda-yadda, but sometimes it's remarkable to see it work.

Case in point: This afternoon at Langerado's media tent, I watched as a Chicago-based podcaster named Jules (no last name on her business card) sat two bands down, matt pond PA and Backyard Tire Fire, and had them play acoustic songs, which she recorded on to an iPod fitted with a small microphone. Her next step was to dump the freshly recorded audio to her laptop, edit the interviews and perfomances, and prepare to put them on her podcasting site, called Earphoria, for anyone to hear.

No studio, no stage, just a session conducted at a table with a few chairs. Amazing, no? And matt pond PA's acoustic performance of Sunshine was gorgeous.

Last I looked, none of these Langerado sessions had landed on the site yet, but Earphoria does still have its podcast up from last year's Lollapalooza festival in Chicago. I'm sure Langerado will get there soon. Check this address if you're curious to hear some of this weekend's bands behind the scenes and unplugged.

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The National Weather Service has a tornado watch in effect until 2 a.m. for more than 20 Florida counties including Hendry, where the festival is taking place. I was aware that the weather will get colder tonight and tomorrow, but hopefully the front gets here in no condition to spawn tornadoes.

I'm not sure how one evacuates 20,000 people at a music festival, given the unpredictability of tornadoes, but I'm trusting that Langerado officials are monitoring the situation closely and will make stage announcements and take steps as necessary.

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You should know the Sun-Sentinel is all over this Langerado business, and my colleagues at Metromix have two photographers roaming the festival. Check out their images right here and keep an eye on the doings in the 'Glades by visiting sunsentinel.com/langerado.

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After Thursday's rain and power outage, Friday's been the Langerado festival's day to dry out, reboot and be seen in daylight. It looks more promising now that I'm not stumbling around in the dark.

Indigenous, a Native American rock band with a soulful, rootsy blue streak, was playing on the main stage this afternoon, sounding like a cross between ZZ Top and Big Head Todd & the Monsters. Backyard Tire Fire, at the "Greenerado" eco-stage, was doing its part by recycling the gut-bucket music of Mofro and upcoming Langerado attraction G. Love & Special Sauce.

Alligator wrestling with Seminole reptile-wrangler Billy Walker has attracted a crowd to watch the pros - on the other side of a fence - be playful with "Lucky," a 10-foot alligator who looks like a public statue when he's absolutely still, hunkered down into the grass, until his mouth snaps like a bear trap. As of this afternoon, the wrestlers still have all of their fingers and thumbs.

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The sound of the Langerado music festival on Thursday was, for me, a drumbeat - rain hitting my windshield on the slow crawl up Snake Road in the Everglades. I had hoped to arrive a little before the first bands started playing at 6 p.m., but a heavy storm and heavy traffic on the home stretch into the festival grounds conspired to sink that plan.

For reasons too stupid to detail just yet (you can read about it below the fold), I wound up hearing just a little bit of music at Langerado's muddy Big Cypress debut. There was Les Claypool, of Primus fame, singing like a squawk-box Walter Winchell, and playing his guttural-sounding bass guitar in a band whose brass section had a Sun Ra feel for skronk. I caught a bit of Dead Confederate, who seemed to be a summit of Drive-By Truckers' Southernism and Radiohead's art of noise. It was squall meets y'all, and I'm not sure Dead Confederate quite pulled it off. Or it might have been my foul mood to blame at that point.

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I'll be blogging away at Langerado No. 6, the festival in the swamp that comes before the festival in the desert (Coachella), the festival in the woods (Bonnaroo) and the festivals downtown (Pitchfork, Lollapalooza).

The campers begin arriving at Big Cypress Seminole Reservation tomorrow, and the music starts at 6 p.m. with The Palominos on the Sunset Stage and Ben Jelen at the Chickee Hut.

Here every link I can think of:

- A Langerado video preview from Sun-Sentinel.com, with interviews of organizers, a colorful look at this week's site prep and excerpts from last year's festival

- A story about site prep (and note the comments board, which had more than 50 posts last I checked - some interesting, some concerned, some nasty, some enthusiastic)

- An interview with Mike D of the Beastie Boys (9:30 p.m. Friday, Everglades Stage)

- An interview with Mike Mills of R.E.M. (9:30 p.m. Saturday, Everglades Stage)

- A Langerado field guide from Metromix

- A very helpful schedule grid

- Langerado's Web site, naturally

If you go, you'll exit I-75 (Alligator Alley) at mile 49, and take Snake Road (also called Government Road, Jose Billie Road and Rte. 833, depending on the stretch) 15 miles north-northwest into the Seminole reservation, in Hendry County. The festival grounds proper will be on your right, not far from the spot where Phish played 1999 to a close.

Gates open 8 a.m. tomorrow for those holding four-day passes — $199.50 general admission and $450 VIP in advance; or $225 (GA) and $500 (VIP) at the gate. Single-day tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are $75 in advance, $90 at the gate. Separate parking is available for single-day attendees. Children 10 and younger are admitted free with paid adults.

That's it for now. I'll be all eyes and ears starting tomorrow. Feel free to check back here.

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Just in time for the Langerado festival, I'm treating you to a 78-page legal paper on the virtues of jam band culture.

Don't be afraid: I've read it so you don't have to, but if you've got some free time, I recommend "Fear and Norms and Rock & Roll: What Jambands Can Teach Us About Persuading People to Obey Copyright Law." It dates to 2005 (I only learned about it today, so it's news to me). It's written by a law professor with an easygoing, readable style, and a well-developed sense of history and context. And its main point is intriguing. The author, Mark F. Schultz, argues that jam bands in the mold of the Grateful Dead and Phish offer the mainstream music industry a workable, less confrontational way to keep downloaders from destroying their business.

Interestingly, they do this by encouraging free trade of their music -- to a point.

The typical jam band, of the sort that you'll find at Langerado, doesn't generally have to sue or threaten to sue in order to get a financial settlement -- tactics the major labels have adopted as part of their ongoing campaign to discourage unauthorized song-swapping.

Jam band fans tend to obey whatever restrictions the band cares to place on copying. They do so partly because there are so few restrictions. Fans are encouraged to tape the band's live shows, make copies of those recordings and trade as many of them as often as they please. Schultz notes that taping wasn't invented by the Grateful Dead or Deadheads, but that band and its fans "institutionalized" the practice and showed the way.

For upcoming Langerado acts such as Widespread Panic and moe., free fan taping and tape-trading in live shows is as much a part of the experience as touring, selling t-shirts and putting out studio albums.

The modern day jam band draws the line at a couple of places. Tapers may not sell or profit in any way from these free concert recordings. And when it comes to studio albums, fans are encouraged to buy those at the retail price and to not upload-download them at will unless the band has said it's OK to do so. Overwhelmingly, fans comply, because that's the handshake arrangement they entered into as tapers or supporters of the band.

Jam band culture, in short, has developed rules that require little or no legal enforcement because everyone agrees they work and everyone opts in. Schultz writes:

Jambands can trust their fans because the fan community has developed social norms against copying music works that jambands have designated as "off limits." ... The community enforces these norms internally and externally, sometimes even reporting violations to the bands' attorneys.

The fan pays for a concert ticket (and he may have gotten first dibs on good seats by being a loyal taper or member of the band's fan club). But he gets to record the show for free and receive free recordings of other shows from other tapers. Call it legal, nonprofit bootlegging.

The band, in turn, gives up some of the income it might have earned as the sole distributor of its concert recordings. But giving up most control of live tape traffic promotes affection, goodwill and loyalty -- feelings that make it easy for the fan to open his wallet come tour time or upon the release of a new studio album.

And the band has another ace up its sleeve: the official version of the same tape-traded show, this time exquisitely mastered, mixed and packaged. Pearl Jam -- hardly a jam band despite the name -- embraced this two-tiered approach: Pearl Jam lets tapers tape, but the band also makes its own soundboard recordings and then releases literally every live show on CD, often within months of the concert date.

The Grateful Dead camp, meanwhile, is still making money by putting out CDs and DVDs of shows that have been circulating free of charge among Deadheads for decades.

Is there a lesson in this way of doing business for the mainstream music industry? Schultz doesn't say to give up enforcement, but he does suggest that enforcement alone -- lawsuits, cease-and-desist orders, threats of prosecution -- cannot change hearts and minds. It's also going to take patient persuasion, and a set of practices that make music fans feel good about respecting limits on file-sharing. Shultz writes:

Digital distribution -- both legal and illegal -- is bringing about the demise of the old business model. No longer can the music industry rely on one-hit-wonders to sell relatively high-priced pieces of plastic or vinyl containing one or two hits bundled with less desirable songs. People have choices now, and among those choices is the choice whether to comply with copyright law. The music industry thus needs to think in terms of building loyal communiities that have reciprocal relationships with artists rather than merely moving physical products into the hands of consumers.

He also notes that technology has its own force of gravity, and that the migration of recorded music to the Internet is inevitably causing more bands, "jam" and otherwise, to strike up more of these two-way relationships. Songs and videos are streamed and shared, and other information is exchanged, through communal sites such as MySpace and YouTube. Bands, and record labels, give away some of their work in hopes of attracting people who will pay for other offerings.

This sort of exchange becomes habit-forming for bands and fans, and impossible to stop once it starts. Over time a more intensive kind of sharing and interacting with the music becomes natural -- and expected. And it doesn't necessarily depend on touring and taping. Some bands have handed out master recordings of individual tracks and allowed fans to remix the songs and share the results online. Bands that don't want to live on the road can surely find other ways to give and receive.

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