R.E.M.'s Chronic Town EP celebrated it's 25th anniversary a few days ago. Here they are early in 1983 performing "Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)" on Nickelodeon's Livewire (courtesy of Photo Robert's youtube video vault).
Come to think of it, it might not be early 1983, because they performed "So. Central Rain" on the same program, which didn't come out until Reckoning. There was also a Q&A section with the band where one young fan (future Beastie Boy Ad-Rock) asks if he can get a lyric sheet so he can find out what Michael Stipe is singing about.
There's a new R.E.M. live CD/DVD coming out in October, that was recorded and filmed in Dublin on the Around the Sun tour. This is their first official live album, but it weighs a little too heavy on inferior ATS material to be essential. I'd like to see them do a The Name Of This Band is R.E.M. type set, with the best performances from all their tours, especiallly their early tours.
Near the top of my R.E.M. live shows list is their show on the night that Chronic Town was released (8/24/82) at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco. That concert was recorded by KALX FM in Berkeley, and they played nearly all the songs from Chronic Town and Murmur (most of their debut LP was written before the EP came out) in a blistering hour long set. I wasn't there, but got the tape in a trade, and was blown away from first listen.
The next night was when the video for "Wolves, Lower" was filmed at Club Lingerie in Hollywood.
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