This is not my first show. This is the show I am VERY bitter about missing because it was right across the street from my dorm and I hadn't yet connnected the name R.E.M. with the song that I liked so much on the radio. . . plus the ad campaign was stupid. (Sock hop in the gym! -- guaranteed to drive me away.)

24 September 1982 - Huff Gym, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL

set: Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Pilgrimage / We Walk / Wolves, Lower / Laughing / Romance / Sitting Still / 1,000,000 / Pretty Persuasion / Catapult / West Of The Fields / Moral Kiosk / Radio Free Europe

encore: Perfect Circle / White Tornado / Ages Of You / Carnival Of Sorts (Boxcars) / That Beat / Skank

This is not my first show either. This is the show my friend Micha is particularly bitter about missing because her manager at work wouldn't let her have the night off because she was going to this show!

25 May 1983 - Park West, Chicago, IL

support: Let's Active, The dB's

set: Moral Kiosk / Catapult / Sitting Still / Shaking Through / Pilgrimage / Seven Chinese Brothers / Talk About The Passion / Laughing / Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Just A Touch / West Of The Fields / Radio Free Europe

encore 1: White Tornado / Ages Of You / We Walk / 1,000,000

encore 2: In The Year 2525

notes: most likely the show finished with Carnival Of Sorts and possibly Skank, however this can't be confirmed as no more of the show was recorded

This is the actual first R.E.M. show I ever saw:

7 July 1984 - Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL

support: Dream Syndicate

set: Femme Fatale / Radio Free Europe / Gardening At Night / 9-9 / Windout / Letter Never Sent / Sitting Still / Driver 8 / So. Central Rain / Seven Chinese Brothers / Harborcoat / Cushy Tush / Hyena / Pretty Persuasion / Little America / Second Guessing / (Don't Go Back To) Rockville / King Of The Road / Walk, Don't Run

notes: This show was recorded by a local radio station, WXRT 93.1 FM, and broadcast twice: once at a length of 1 1/2 hours, the next time broadcast it was cut to fit a 1 hour timeslot. This show can be found on the CD bootlegs "Disturbances" (along with what is reportably the worst sound quality in bootleg history) and "Back To Rockville", as well as the vinyl bootleg "Live in Chicago"

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David, did you live in D.C., or were you visiting someone?

I was there on spring break, staying with my good friend Lars Hanson. Lars is a NY actor incidentally, and if you've seen a lot of L&O, chances are you've seen him. Anyway, Lars was the twin brother of Ivor Hanson, the drummer in numerous DC hardcore bands including: SOA (with Henry Garfield, nee Rollins), Faith (his most famous band) and Embrace (post Minor Threat, pre-Fugazi Ian MacKaye band).

It was an AMAZING show. I'd never heard them before - we went because they were from Athens and had some dim notion they'd sound like Pylon. It's still probably the best live show I ever saw.

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Lars is a NY actor incidentally, and if you've seen a lot of L&O, chances are you've seen him.

I've seen a lot of L&O commercials on TNT, does that count? (I think I'm the Last Person in America who's never seen an episode of Law & Order, or any spinoff thereof.) But thank you for satisfying my curiosity.

And my first/last/only R.E.M. was:

10 September 1999 - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD support: Spacehog set: Lotus / What's The Frequency, Kenneth? / Wake-Up Bomb / Suspicion / Camera / Daysleeper / Low Desert / Everybody Hurts / The Apologist / Sweetness Follows / The Great Beyond / The One I Love / Find The River / At My Most Beautiful / Finest Worksong / Losing My Religion / Man On The Moon / Walk Unafraid encore: Hope / Why Not Smile / Pop Song 89 / Tongue / Cuyahoga / It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

(It took me forever to find it on the site because I couldn't remember the date, year or venue. Which is extra-odd because the date was three days after my 21st birthday.)

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23 March 1984 - The Rat, Boston, MA
support: Kilkenny Cats, Hüsker Dü
set included: The Lion Sleeps Tonight / Pale Blue Eyes / Crazy / So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star / 20th Century Boy / Paint It, Black

I remember lots of covers. REM were "unannounced" but everyone knew they were playing. Until a bunch of guys we didn't recognize took the stage and said they were the Kilkenny Cats, we assumed that REM were using the name as a pseudonym.

It was also my first time at the Rat, having turned the then-legal age of 20 a month earlier.

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It's interesting to see the covers, because I remember so many of them recurring with other bands as well. Certain songs apparently had a cachet back then, but I remember tons of Boston bands covering "Shakin' All Over" and I remember True West covering "20th Century Boy."

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I remember True West covering "20th Century Boy."

And the Replacements, of course.

Peter Yarrow's stolen guitar found on eBay! - [link]

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This was mine

25 March 1989 - Hirsch Memorial Coliseum, Shreveport, LA support: Indigo Girls

I was in 8th grade.

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At my first REM in '84 the sound guy told me I looked "just like Courteney Cox. The girl in the Bruce Springsteen video." Who was, he said, a friend of his. I never forget a compliment no matter how untrue or lame.

I think the dBs played Lionel Ritchie's "All Night Long" at my show and REM came out to jam with them on it. But it's possible I'm wildly mis-remembering. I'll have to check with my friend who went to the show with me.

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REM came out to jam with them on it.

Peter Buck would come out and jam with people constantly, whether they wanted him to or not.

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Peter Buck would come out and jam with people constantly, whether they wanted him to or not

heh. I earwormed myself with Lionel Ritchie. Serves me right I guess.

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