From Showtime's Rock of the 80's - Recorded live at the Palace - Los Angeles, CA - 1984 - R.E.M. : Michael Stipe - Lead Vocal Instrument; Peter Buck - Guitar; Mike Mills - Bass/Vocals; Bill Berry - Drums/Vocals
@@gnlout7403Grew up on LRP. IMHO one of the best college albums ever. Saw them live in Williamsburg VA in '87. ❤❤❤ Then in Hampton a few years later for the Green tour. What shows!!❤
"THE BEST DAMN BAR BAND IN THE SOUTH" I had just moved to North Carolina in 1981, and was listening to several college radio stations (WFDD in Winston-Salem was great). Another band, possibly Let's Active, was set to play in Charlotte at an empty store-turned-bar called, I believe, Viceroy Park. Myself and two buds drove the hour to Charlotte, but that band couldn't appear. The guy on the club's phone said, "R.E.M. is playing. They're the best damn bar band in the south." Talk about understatement! Who knew? Needless to say, we three and the 40-50 other folks in the big empty store were in for a treat. Stipe was still long-haired, and he was moved by the spirit, whirling about on the little riser stage. I was moved enough to buy Murmur when it came out 1 or 2 years later. Absolutely one of my favorite groups, and surely one of my top five concerts, if only for being there that early in their career.
My wife is DD Thornton. She was the most popular DJ on WFDD at the time and went on to do New Generation on WKZL. We are still close with many music people of that time.
@@rickfoster8128 I was at Appalachian and had the new music show on WASU. I also was on WQFS from Guilford College. We are good friends with Mitch Easter. We brought Todd Rundgren to meet Mitch about 7 years ago. That was fun.
@@BillyLeather Wow. Todd Rundgren and Mitch Easter! Some serious talent. Very cool. I was a late-night announcer on WVCW, a campus station at VCU in Richmond, Va, in the late 1970s. Small potatoes, but loads of fun. I've been an avid fan of college radio wherever I've lived, including a stint as a reporter at a paper in the foothills of western Carolina. It was there that I discovered WFDD. I still have several cassette tapes I made of broadcasts there. I know I had some with Deacon Light with D.D. I assume she is your wife? She was a wonderful d.j., introducing us to lots of good artists during a very vibrant time in music. If she is your wife, tell her I am the guy that stopped by unannounced one night at the station and took her photo sometime between '81 and '84. I stopped by while on my way home to Richmond. I asked her if I could take a fan photo of her. She said yes, I did, and thanked her for her music and hit the road. I have worried that it came off creepy, but there was no ill intent. She was this fount of wisdom on new music for this guy liviing in a back-water small town deep on rural Carolina. Please let know if she remembers this. I will look for a print of the image and get back to you if you like.
@@rickfoster8128 Would love to see the print. She is currently working on a history of WFDD. We did much of the work around 2003.. Wake Forest Magazine wants to do a history on the station and she put the DD in WFDD. We had two guys drive up from Charlotte years ago to meet her. We have had a great 31 years together and have two talented daughters that live in NYC. I will let her know about the photo. If you are on Facebook send me a friend request, William Thornton Kenny. I took her last name as my middle name.
I'm a huge fan myself, so I can see why they're your favorite, but such things are subjective. "Best band ever" is statistically inaccurate. That honor goes to The Beatles.
First time I saw them live they played a two hour set which contained a fifteen min medley of surf garage psyche covers which seamlessly segued into a fifteen min medley of velvet underground covers, oh and they flung in a couple of country tunes for good measure during the first encore including Charlie rich's Behind Closed Doors. What a fucking night that was ,blew me away ,Edinburgh 1984/5 or thereabouts.
This is one of many great R.E.M songs - my other favorites are: WE WALK, Wolves Lower, Pretty persuasion, Carnival or sorts, Laughing, Harbor Coat, Maps and Legends, Green Grow Rushes Grow, I BELIEVE, What if we give it away, Begin the Begin, Ages of You, Exhuming McCarthy, Finest Working, Texarkana, Turn you inside out, Stand, Man on the moon, EVERYBODY HURTS, IMITATION OF LIFE and Whats the frequency Kenneth and CRAZY
The period from chronic Town, up into fables is just so rich , like, life's rich pageant , but so underrated and generally misunderstood, unless you are a true fan
They had a great career...I do have a soft spot for that early era...At the time, this seemed so...new...I would see something like this and think: "This is really exciting...This is really different...I like this...Is anybody besides me getting this?" Then I would look around and see all the girls dancing to it. "Oh, fuck yeah, it has that, too? I'm in!"
Heh, that was actually Jason & the Scorchers, with the first shot close up on my old friend Perry Baggs. Jason does look like Dwight in that shot though.
I was so utterly in love then...REM was an obsession, then they went mainstream, Stipe went bald, and I sorta broke up with them. Same thing happened with U2... It's great to see this video and sigh again like the dewy-eyed college coed that I was.
That;s an elitist, snob statement. They did not sell out to go mainstream. They always truly believed in their music. It was just, after years of them working their asses off, and playing for peanuts, they got discovered for the incredible talent that they were, which they totally deserve. I imagine, from their first album release, they would have loved to have the record sales of Document.
so sad to say music is dead its been long dead music and groups like REM that were big in the 80's sadly its evident will never be again,, the 80's in music was the best and no decade will ever sad to say match that greatness :-(
To top off the wonderfully muddy lyrics, the only copy I ever owned in the 80's was a commercial cassette version, which was muddier still, bought at the PX at Ft. Eustis, VA. And yet I loved this song. I could sing along with anything that remotely rhymed! Over time it dawned on me that the lyrics were not that important.
i was kind of mired in synthpop at the time of murmur so i was slow to appreciate them. if i had seen this great performance that may have been different. i came around to them after seeing the video for so. central rain. bought reckoning soon after.
A friend of my brother's had them sleeping in his basement! I know I saw them in venues large and small, down to a gym at Drew University, which was not much beyond a high school gymnasium.
There is a handful of bands who created a sound that was, and remains, uniquely their own. It's usually at it's least distilled in their early work, and however great and big and popular a band becomes, the purity of the first few records can never be replicated. Even by the band themselves. REM are one of the best examples of this - Automatic For The People is a truly great record, but for the unadulterated bliss of the singular REM sound, nothing tops the Chronic Town/Murmur era.
@ugeauxgrrl89 Me too - I sorta lost interest at "Monster". But everything they did before then still gets plaid to death on my computer and stereo. Absolutely loved R.E.M. Loved, loved, loved.
Let Me In is on Monster in addition to three or four other very good songs. I myself am a bigger fan of their earlier stuff but they proved they could keep the bar high with Automatic For The People as they achieved worldwide popularity.
@@ChrisShafi This name I got we all agreed C could stop, stop it well read We could bind it in the scythe We could gather, throw a fit Up to par and Katie bar The kitchen signs but not me in Sit and try for the big kill A waste of time sitting still I'm the sun and you can read I'm the sign and you're not deaf We could bind it in the scythe We could gather, throw a fit Up to par and Katie bars The kitchen signs but not me in Sit and try for the big kill A waste of time sitting still I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you This name I got we all agreed C could stop, stop it well read We could bind it in the scythe We could gather, throw a fit Up to par and Katie bars The kitchen signs but not me in Sit and try for the big kill A waste of time sitting still I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you You can gather when I talk Talk until you're blue You could get away from me Get away from me I'm up to par and Katie bars The kitchen signs but not me in Sit and try for the big kill A waste of time sitting still I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you I can hear you Can you hear me?
Who the hell is the first band being spun off screen at the start - hilarious! some american 70's rock act, and then here come the 80's. saw them in 85, it feels like a long time back
Look he wasn't telling us anything in particular here. He was changing the words to songs he didn't know the words to and it's documented by Stipe himself. His voice however was another instrument and has always been compelling. Salute to one of America's best bands all-time.
@@matthewstetson711 Wrong Matt! He just said that in interviews bc at the time he didn’t want people to know what he was talking about...First of all,,you have to remember that Stipe was a student at the University of GA..Art department....and like any g
And like any good Art....the Song is about what the listener wants the song to be about....how the individual listener interprets the song is unique to each person...just like a painting,,,,it’s what You,,,the viewer can identify with that piece of Art...to me.....Wasting time Sitting Still means...Don’t waste your Life,,,or in this case The Time that you have! Do something important with your Time! Become something! Achieve! Aspire to be Great! 🦁🦁❤️❤️☘️☘️✌️✌️
Michael Stipe has one of the coolest voices in the world. The self-conscious dancing from some of the audience members makes me nervous and makes me cringe. That one chick looking at her feet thought she looked so cool... 1:14
