For this week’s installment of Vintage Video, we present what’s believed to be the earliest pro-shot footage of R.E.M. in concert: a 50-minute live set filmed on Oct. 10, 1982, for broadcast on TV by a South Carolina station about six months before the release of the band’s debut, Murmur.
As you can see below, the setlist, to no surprise, is heavy on songs from the Chronic Town EP and Murmur, and includes “Ages of You,” which wouldn’t surface until the Dead Letter Office compilation was released in 1987. Watch for the band’s producer, Mitch Easter, and future fifth member Peter Holsapple to pop on stage, and certainly stick around for the reggae-like jam labeled as “Skank” that closes the set.
Watch the full performance from The Pier in Raleigh, N.C., below via zararity.
Setlist: R.E.M., The Pier, Raleigh, N.C., 10/10/82
1. “Wolves, Lower”
2. “Laughing”
3. “1,000,000”
4. “Moral Kiosk”
5. “Catapult”
6. “West of the Fields”
7. “Radio Free Europe”
8. “Ages of You”
9. “We Walk”
10. “Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)”
11. “Skank”
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Vintage Video: Watch The Cure’s rare, out-of-print 1984 concert film ‘Live in Japan’
- Vintage Video: ‘Drums and Wires’-era XTC live performance captured by French TV
- Vintage Video: The Sisters of Mercy’s out-of-print Royal Albert Hall concert film ‘Wake’
- Vintage Video: Bob Mould plays scorching 100-minute set on ‘Black Sheets of Rain’ tour
Wolves, Lower is still one of my favorite R.E.M. tracks.
Yeh, I do agree… I think that all that Great… Small, Masterpiece ep called ‘Chronic Town’ contains Great Songs… Stumble is one of my favourites
Love all the “Chronic Town” songs, but my absolute favorite is “Carnival of Sorts.”
Which is why dead letter office is in my top 3 R.e.m list ( Murmur, fables, dead letter).
Mine, too!
Wow… nice to see, hear, watch an early influence in their early incarnation…
When they inevitably get back together, the four of them need to do this exact setlist for their first reunion show. Brilliant!
Still hoping for that!
My husband was the voice requesting Ages of You!
Whose the 3rd guitarist?
Looks Like Peter Holsapple. He was in the dB’s and I bet he opened the show, as Michael thanks him in the opening secs of the vid.
Might have been Mitch Easter and mentions LETS ACTIVE… he calls out Were’s Mitch?
No that does look like Holsapple
‘Ages Of You’ is one of the best songs to never make a band’s proper album.
Peter Holsapple
How about a poll of R.E.M. songs (and albums)?
I was there. Absolutely, awesome! One of the best shows at The
Pier (and there were many)!
So jealous!
I loved this era of R.E.M. Moral Kiosk was impressive. I guess Murmur was well in the works so those songs sound tighter than I thought they might.
I really wanted to hear “What’s New, Pussycat?”
This takes me back to the early tour dates at the Tower in Philly and Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. The dBs opening in Philly, Camper Van Beethoven in Pittsburgh. Good times. Would love to go back and re-live any of those shows.
I want to go back and relive the whole 80s when so much of the music we discuss here was new!
Saw them around this time. Absolute ecstasy. No not that ecstasy…
Saw them in April 1982 at 930 Clubi in DC during this tour (at that is the timing I recall) we were trying to decide where to go and my friend’s drummer said let’s go to 930, this band REM is supposed to be good. Thanks Ryan, you were right.
REM was perfect from DAY ONE…They could play live, which was rare…Unique and transcendent…as good as pop music gets …In 82 was a NYC punk at college in Raleigh totally blown away by REM…Chronic Town EP was so odd …They made me think of Flannery O’Conner, slave shacks, southern uniqueness & I was glad to be at the Pier rather than CBGBs where I wasted so many nights…