Question: R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, that was formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist/backing vocalist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe. One of the first alternative rock bands, R.E.M. was noted for Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style, Stipe's distinctive vocal quality and obscure lyrics, Mills' melodic basslines and backing vocals, and Berry's tight, economical style of drumming. R.E.M. released its first single--"Radio Free Europe"--in 1981 on the independent record label Hib-Tone. The single was followed by the Chronic Town EP in 1982, the band's first release on I.R.S. Records.

After the band released two slow-paced albums in a row, R.E.M.'s 1994 album Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." In contrast to the sound of its predecessors, the music of Monster consisted of distorted guitar tones, minimal overdubs, and touches of 1970s glam rock. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The record sold about nine million copies worldwide. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster reached the Top 30 on the British charts. Warner Bros. assembled the music videos from the album as well as those from Automatic for the People for release as Parallel in 1995.  In January 1995, R.E.M. set out on its first tour in six years. The tour was a huge commercial success, but the period was difficult for the group. On March 1, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland, having suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and recovered fully within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture its shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. The final three performances of the tour were filmed at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia and released in home video form as Road Movie.  R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million (a figure the band constantly asserted originated with the media), rumored to be the largest recording contract in history at that point. The group's 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK. The five million copies of the album sold were a reversal of the group's commercial fortunes of the previous five years. Time writer Christopher John Farley argued that the lesser sales of the album were due to the declining commercial power of alternative rock as a whole. That same year, R.E.M. parted ways with manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against him by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer Bertis Downs assumed managerial duties.

Using a quote from the above article, answer the following question: Did they win any awards for the album?
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Answer: the largest recording contract in history


Question: Funeral for a Friend were a Welsh post-hardcore band from Bridgend, formed in 2001. The band consisted of lead vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye and guitarist Kris Coombs-Roberts for its entire history, with Darran Smith (guitar), Gareth Davies (bass) and Ryan Richards (drums and screaming vocals) completing the line-up for the band's first four studio albums. Between 2008 and 2012 the band transitioned towards its final line-up, which saw Davies-Kreye and Coombs-Roberts alongside guitarist and occasional vocalist Gavin Burrough, bassist Richard Boucher and drummer Pat Lundy (who left the band in 2014). Funeral for a Friend's popularity rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their debut album, Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation (2003).

In May 2005 the first single from the upcoming second album "Streetcar" acted as the band's fourth consecutive top 20 single in the United Kingdom by debuting at number 15. On 14 June 2005, the band released their second album Hours through Atlantic Records. Produced by Terry Date, the album was recorded in two Seattle studios owned by the grunge band Pearl Jam and featured unusual methods of recording, for example Matt Davies' vocals were recorded whilst in a moving car and on a crowded Seattle street, for the song "Drive". Just two weeks after its release the album was certified a Silver over 60,000 sales and was awarded a Gold for over 100,000 sales on 23 December 2005. In August of the same year, the band won a Kerrang! Award for "Best British Band".  Funeral for a Friend performed several low-profile shows in Wales, including Bangor University and Bridgend Recreation Centre, prior to the release of Hours. In the United States, they played alongside bands such as Atreyu, Saosin, Hawthorne Heights and Thrice on the Maurice Stage of the 2005 Vans Warped Tour. The band headlined the British leg of Taste Of Chaos across November with support from The Used, Killswitch Engage, Rise Against and Story Of the Year. Funeral for a Friend released the third and last single from Hours, "History", which music video depicts the events of the miner strikes of the mid-1980s in South Wales.  Funeral For a Friend closed the promotional jaunt for Hours in the Summer of 2006, with a series of UK shows rescheduled from February. Most of the original dates had been cancelled because Matt Davies had suffered from a bout of laryngitis. Several other shows were scheduled in the UK to complement these rescheduled dates, and the tour culminated in a slot below headliners Guns N' Roses at the Download Festival at Donington Park. The rest of 2006 was spent writing and recording the band's third album.

Using a quote from the above article, answer the following question: Where did they perform gigs
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Answer:
Funeral for a Friend performed several low-profile shows in Wales, including Bangor University and Bridgend Recreation Centre,