2 December 1985
Civic Center,
Raleigh, NC
support: The Minutemen
1:39:21
01. Feeling Gravitys Pull
02. Harborcoat
03. Maps And Legends
04. Pilgrimage
05. Driver 8
06. Letter Never Sent
07. Hyena
08. Green Grow The Rushes
09. Born To Run
10. Moral Kiosk
11. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
12. Swan Swan H
13. West Of The Fields
14. Can't Get There From Here
15. Auctioneer (Another Engine)
16. Old Man Kensey
17. Pretty Persuasion
18. Life And How To Live It
encore 1:
19. White Tornado
20. Pills
21. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
22. Tired Of Singing Trouble
23. See No Evil
encore 2:
24. Dolphin Story
25 Theme From Two Steps Onward
26. Toys In The Attic
27. Second Guessing
28. Little America
I lost the show that noody had.
I acquired many hunderds of R.E.M. shows in my trading heyday, and I've resolved to listen to all of them. When I got to this particular show, one of the discs was missing. It was in a double jewel case and labled 2cd but the second disc was nowhere to be found. Did the kids get it? Did I leave it in a cd player that I got rid of? I'll never know. No worries I thought, I'll just ask my old trading pals. One by one the answers came back: no I don't have that one, let me know hen you find it.
It's interesting, the chain of events that can make a show rare. Some are only passed between a few friends. Some are recorded by tapers who aren't fans of the band or have a couple flaws and put away to deal with later. The most common one in the R.E.M. arena seems to be that it was an exceedingly poor recording to begin with (Fortunately not the case here), and never really missed by anyone until someone realized it had dropped off the face of the earth. It exists on so-and-so's list saved from 2003, so it has to be out there, right?
As a last ditch effort before I wrote this one off, I uploaded the partial version I had here to Dime. I got a few leads, Henrik1978 even sent a tape from Europe but it had the last few tracks chopped off. It was closer, but still not what I was hoping for. Finally the show was spotted on Shayne's escellent Sacramento Music Archive and one of the fine folks at JEMS helped me get it. I've been holding out on a few leads from guys who have it on tape, but I gave myself the deadline of Dec 2, the show's 35th anniversary.
So here it is, complete, almost lost, back from the brink. Sound is solid, not great. North Carolina was a second home to R.E.M., having played their first non-Georgia gig at The Station (which still exists) in nearby Carrboro. The energy was always bumped up when R.E.M. played Raleigh and the band was in fine form this night as they closed in on the finish line of an intense 116 date (with 4 cancellations) tour spread out over 7 months. In an odd twist of scheduling, this show took place immediately after R.E.M.'s two night stand at The Fox theater in Atlanta--the venue that hosted the end of the 86, 87 and (unoficially) 89 tours. One might speculate that the December shows were add-ons. The dolphin story is unique to this show. The only edit I made to these files was to remove a 12 second period of silence between Toys In The Attic & Second Guessing.
Thanks again to Henrik1978, Shayne, and JEMS!
Yes there are still a few of us active in R.E.M. shows and you can find many of us here https://www.remtimeline.com/listentome/
(https://www.remtimeline.com/reviews/2dec85.html)
By Mitchell McGirt
The first time that I saw them was actually the first time I had been to a real rock concert. I couldn't have picked a better one. The concert was on December 2nd, 1985 in Raleigh, North Carolina at the Civic Center. The civic center's concert hall isn't very big and doesn't sound that great, but I was happy to have been able to see them in a smaller venue because the band became very popular the next year and moved on to bigger locales.
The opening band was The Minutemen and it was one of their last shows (The guitarist D. Boon died in January '86). I had heard about The Minutemen, but had never heard their music before. I remember being totally blown away by them. They were great! George Hurley, the drummer, had these long bangs that he was just thrashing up and down during every song. I loved D. Boon's style on guitar because one minute he'd be thrashing away and the next he'd be plucking a country tune. He really influenced me as a guitarist. His style just said,"Anything goes..." I remember Mike Watt looked like Castro at that point. He had on this khaki jumpsuit and had a Castro-like beard. His bass playing has awesome. I was really impressed when, after he broke a string, he told a story while re-stringing the bass himself. It really kept the spontanaeity of the concert going and they were back to playing in no time.
After the Minutemen finished their blistering set, the lights dimmed. The low, rumbling sound of a train engine passing and a loud report of it's horn was piped through the PA. It sounded like it was going through the building. Four silhouettes got up on the stage. The opening strains of "Feeling Gravity's Pull" started up, the lights came on, and the show was under way. Michael Stipe came out singing from behind the drum riser in a gray trenchcoat and what looked like a tricorn hat. He dragged the mike stand as he trudged around the stage during the opening number. The rest of the set was just one great song after another. I was impressed at how really "loose" the band was. Peter Buck was jumping and kicking his leg out to one side. Mike Mills, not as geeky in concert as I had imagined him to be from just the photographs, was rocking and nailing the back-up vocals. Bill Berry was Mr. Cool on the drums. I remember someone bombing the stage with toilet paper at one point and Michael threw it back saying, "Let's keep the ass-wipe in the audience..." I actually met the toilet-paper thrower years later. He said he had only come to see The Minutemen. There was one point where Michael did some rambling story he had taped onto a music stand about "Green Eggs and Ham". It led into a song, but I can't remember which one. Overall, it was one of the best shows I had ever seen. Although I hear now that that time was a very difficult one for the band (they almost broke up). They sure as hell fooled me. All I saw was a great band playing great songs with a lot of youthful energy and, to me, it looked like they were having a great time doing it. I was an arm's length away from one of the world's greaest bands. I'll never forget that show. I wish I could see them in a small place like that again.
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Notes:
-Before Maps & Legends MS "Let's keep our asswipe out there where it belongs".
-there is some discussion about what to play before MS breaks out Born To Run. After PB(?) "E is the right key for that song, I know".
-Before Auctioneer MS "Caroline woke up one morning, felt an itch behind her ear. She reached ack there and extracted from her long, curly black hair a brown stone, about the size of the end of her thumb. She walked over to a window and threw the (?) just opened up the window took the rock and threw it (?) just as hard as she can. The rock travelled around the world (?) down on countrysides thinking aout al that was going on. Over the oceans and rivers and trees. It even went through Gotham City once. Eventually it landed, somewhere in the vicinity of Philadelphia, PA, zipcode 19107, where after a long and steady search Caroline retrieved the rock from a sidewalk on south 13th street, She picked it up and held it in her tiny little hand and she asked it what it had seen and it told her. She didn't like what she heard. Things weren't going too well in the land of liberty. She didn't know what to do". Rest of the story is standard Caroline: need to name it, needs a preamble--green eggs & ham.
-Kensey in a coffin story before Old Man Kensey. This time victimizing houswives from the mountains of north Georgia who were buying asswipe, Ding-Dongs & Pepsi light from Pigglw Wiggly. As the music begins MS "Chapter two..."
-PB sends White Tornado out to Mitch and Don.
-After Pills MS "And out of that came (?). As from the master to the apprentice and the apprentice [breaks up laughing].
-After See No Evil MS enquires if there are any assassins in the house. He goes on to tell about a dophin show he attended in Florida and compares it to the education system.
Grade: B
-moderate hiss and some boominess