R.E.M.
Graham Chapel, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
6 October 1984
support: The dB's
Unknown source/gen tape > Nakamichi DR1 > Tascam DA3000 @ 24/96
Downsampled to 48k with r8brain
Tracked with CD Wave
Missing: Radio Free Europe
01. Harborcoat
02. West Of The Fields
03. Kohoutek
04. Pilgrimage
05. 7 Chinese Bros.
06. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
07. Hyena
08. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
09. Barney Miller Theme
10. Chicken Train
11. Sitting Still
12. Letter Never Sent
13. Gardening At Night (cuts in)
14. 9-9
15. Frogmore
16. Windout
17. Old Man Kensey
18. Pretty Persuasion
19. Little America
encore 1:
20. Second Guessing
21. Paint It, Black
22. In The Year 2525
23. We Walk - Behind Closed Doors
24. Femme Fatale
25. 1,000,000
encore 2:
26. Moon River
Missing: Wendell Gee / I Can Only Give You Everything / Sloop John B / Born On The Bayou / Gloria
GAN beginning cut
tape stops/starts after Gardening At Night (beginning cut), Little America, 2525, 1,000,000
Notes:
-After West Of The Fields MS notes their interlude music was Tibetan Monks chanting. "Along the same lines, everybody be real careful not to hurt the pews or mark up the walls or anything" before introducing Kohoutek as a song about "a girl went wrong".
-MS tells a brief story of Kensey kidnapping dogs for ransom before his namesake song.
-Before Paint It Black PB states that they don't know how to play the song but thay will try. MS chimes in that they've played it a hundred thousand times, to which PB replies "wait 'till you hear him sing it".
-Before In The Year 2525 there is some confusion how to start the song and while that is discussed, PB says "This is my party trick". MS asks for a round of applause after a moment, "the man can drink". I would whole-heartedly encourage the listener to chug a beer at this point in solidarity with Peter.
Always looking for upgrades in sound quality and completeness. Feel free to drop me a line if you've got some tapes you think ought to be heard.
03/2022 Nakeddave
Additional note: this turned out to be the same recording as was posted as mp3 (not an upgrade) on The McKenzie Tapes website:
With thanks to ontheweekend for spotting that.
Revised with Adobe Audition 3.0.1:
- normalized/balanced audio
- speed corrected 103 stretch
- phase corrected
Revised by Bert13
August 20, 2022
**************************************************************
R.E.M.
Graham Chapel, Washington University
St. Louis, MO
Oct. 6, 1984
FM recording (unknown), courtesy of the McKenzie Tapes project
Lineage: McKenzie Tapes recording (16-bit wave file) > Adobe Audition 2025 for de-noising, phase correction, and normalization > AIFF file > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for track splits, 1 additional pass of NR, and EQ > FLAC
01 Harborcoat
02 West of the Fields
03 Kohoutek (cut repaired)
04 Pilgrimage
05 7 Chinese Bros.
06 So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
07 Hyena
08 (Don't Go Back to) Rockville
09 Barney Miller Theme - Chicken Train w. John the Revelator
10 Sitting Still
11 Letter Never Sent
12 Gardening at Night (fades in)
13 9-9 - Frogmore - Windout
14 Old Man Kensey
15 Pretty Persuasion
16 band exit - crowd - return to stage
17 Little America
18 Second Guessing
19 Paint It Black
20 In the Year 2525 (false start)
21 In the Year 2525
22 We Walk w. Behind Closed Doors
23 Femme Fatale
24 1,000,000
25 Moon River
This recording is missing the first as well as the final 5 or so songs played.
About this revision:
I started with a diamond-in-the-rough lossless recording kindly provided by Tom G. from the McKenzie Tapes Project (learn more at themckenzietapes.com). The recording had no known lineage, but my ears heard a generated FM recording that suffered from multiple deficiencies. On a quality scale, I would have rated it a C-. After a couple of attempts at digital revision over the past 2 years, I’m finally happy with the result. It’s now a decent-sounding FM recording that merits an overall grade of B in my rating system, with just a few sections that dip slightly. (I grade conservatively, as you’ll hear.) In sum, this is quite listenable, even for fans who only want to hear higher quality recordings. Performance wise, this is one to savor: the band is on, and having a big time — tight and confident this far into the tour, but loose enough to play requests (ex: a rousing rendition of the rarely-played Stones cover Paint It Black). This is one of my favorite recordings from 1984.
Warts & fixes:
1. As received, the McKenzie Tapes recording sounded like it came from a 3rd or 4th generation tape source. It was affected by minor FM signal drift and some tape wobble. EQ work helped lessen the effects of the signal drift, but you’ll still hear some amount of tape wobble if you’re listening for it.
2. There were a few dropouts in one channel and numerous start-stop cuts in the recording, suggesting an attempt to save tape. A couple of the cuts are still there because they aren’t very noticeable and don’t affect the music.
3. Due to an ill-timed tape flip, we don’t hear the first seconds of Gardening at Night. It now fades in, notwithstanding a brief section of source tape distortion that remains.
4. Somewhere along the way, the levels were overly amplified, causing some distortion. I reduced the amplification accordingly, so you might want to make a manual adjustment as you listen.
Additional notes:
The first version of this that I shared on 2 torrent trackers had a track that slipped by my quality control team (when it was discovered, I fired all of them with immediate effect). This version has the track in question (03 Kohoutek) repaired, as noted in the file name and on the setlist.
A few years ago, Jeff Ferro shared a hi-res tape that’s said to be from the same tape source. I am dubious on this point, but I will let others be the judge. I have not carefully compared the two except for previewing a few of the tracks. The cursory comparison persuaded me I prefer my reworked version — admitting I’m not very objective on the subject! Meanwhile, I just discovered that Bert13 created his own revision of the Ferro recording in Aug. 2022.
Rob-in-Brevard
Jan. 2026