Dead Reckoning

Here's R.E.M. in November 1984, performing a medley of "Moon River" and "Pretty Persuasion" on BBC2's Old Grey Whistle Test.



We're slowly approaching the end of the R.E.M. alphabetical discography and today's album is Reckoning, which has the same title as an acoustic live album by the Grateful Dead. There are quite a few parallels between early R.E.M. and the Dead: Both bands built up a grassroots following through constant touring, had a network of dedicated fans who traded bootleg recordings of live shows, and had a strong bond with their fans.

Reckoning isn't my favorite R.E.M. album, but 1984 is definitely my favorite year for R.E.M. concert recordings. 1984 R.E.M. is like 1978 Springsteen: Darkness or Reckoning might not be their strongest albums, but both artists were at the height of their rock power during the tours, and were still playing venues that were small enough that there was a bond between the bond between the band and the audience at all the shows.

The one Reckoning tour show I saw in person at the NIU auditorium in DeKalb IL in the Fall (early October). The show was on a Sunday night, and I found out that R.E.M. were playing by reading it in Rolling Stone on Thursday. I took a two hour bus ride from Peoria to DeKalb, by myself, without having a clue where the concert was, or if it was sold out. I figured the show was somewhere on the NIU campus, so I could find it by blindly wandering around campus when I got to DeKalb.

I found the concert (at the university theater), paid my $6 general admission, and saw one of the best concerts I've ever seen, with the dB's and R.E.M. When Peter Buck told everyone to register to vote so we wouldn't get four more years of Reagan, most people cheered, even even though DeKalb is just a few miles from Dutch's hometown of Dixon. That concert was like a secret meeting of Young Democrats from Reagan Country.

After the concert, I was grabbing something to eat at McDonald's near campus (there weren't many places to eat after 10pm in DeKalb!) and the group at the other table were talking about tonight's concert, and how it compared to last night in St. Louis, or Friday in Carbondale. "I like that new 'Auctioneer' song -- why didn't they play that tonight?". I thought I was dedicated by taking a two hour bus trip by myself to see the show, but here were people following R.E.M. around the Midwest, just like Deadheads.

At the half-dozen R.E.M. shows I saw in the Midwest between 1984 and 1987 (DeKalb, Chicago, Champaign, Iowa City IA, Bloomington IN), I started seeing these same faces who would go see the band wherever they played. After that show in DeKalb, I discovered that people would even record the shows and swap the tapes with other fans. In the pre-internet age, this involved replying to ads in the back of Goldmine or Rolling Stone and getting someone else's trade list for yours, then deciding what to trade, then trading it. There was a lot of legwork, but I developed a lot of pen pals via tape trading.

When I traveled to DeKalb two years later to see R.E.M.(on the 1986 Pageantry tour), they played the NIU fieldhouse, tickets were $12 each, and the place was packed. The little college band that could were becoming big rock stars, and the age of showing up at the venue on the day of an R.E.M. show was coming to a close, unless you brought a tie-dyed kaftan and a hand-written "I Need a Miracle" sign. There was a guest appearance by Gary Zekely (the guy who wrote "Superman") that was filmed by MTV, and there are some videos from the show on the youtubes. It was an "arena rock" show at a college gym.

I have about 80-100 R.E.M. live tapes from the early-mid 80s sitting in a big shoebox that I almost never open. The tapes, like most of my cassettes, don't get played very much, but I don't think I'll ever get rid of them. I keep wanting to digitize the best of them, but that would involve sitting through the hours of recordings to find the good one. Plus I think magnetic decay starts to set in after twenty years. Right now the tapes next to my Apple \\c and my old textbooks as souvenirs of my college years. "Have I ever told you kids about the Eighties?"