6 December 1985
The Doremus Memorial Gymnasium,
Washington And Lee University, Lexington, VA
support: The Minutemen
Disc One: 26:11
electric set 1:
01. Feeling Gravitys Pull
02. Harborcoat
03. Maps And Legends
04. Pilgrimage
05. Talk About The Passion
06. Sitting Still
07. MS: Trurn on the lights we're taking a 5 min break
08. MS: Allright, what the fuck are we gonna do here?
Disc Two: 57:29
acoustic set:
01. All I Have To Do Is Dream
02. Driver 8
03. Swan Swan H
04. (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
05. Tired Of Singing Trouble
electric set 2:
06. So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry)
08. Time After Time (Annelise)
09. Can't Get There From Here
10. Pretty Persuasion
11. Old Man Kensey
12. Life And How To Live It
encore:
13. Toys In The Attic
14. Second Guessing
15. Bandwagon
16. See No Evil
Timeline notes: The band stopped playing after 'Sitting Still' due to issues with the crowd pushing to the front. However, they quickly returned to play an acoustic set and then continued the show.
Notes:
-crowd pressing forward isn't the only thing bothering the band. Before Driver 8, MS rips the crowd for throwing beer cans at the Minutemen and curses those responsible to a life of middling mediocrity.
-Swan Swan H is dedicated to a goat that stands on a doghouse
-dropout durung Toys In The Attic
Grade: C
-not boomy but still not very good
Bert13 revision (2nd gen):
R.E.M.
Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA
December 6, 1985
Cass(M) > Cass > Cass > CDR > dBpowerAMP > wav > FLAC Frontend > flac
Revised with Izotope RX 7 / Adobe Audition 3.0.1:
- clip restoration
- phase correction
- balancing, adjusting levels, some minor graphic EQ
- closed a few gaps
- speed adjusted tracks 1 - 8: 99 shrink, tracks 9 - 24: gliding stretch 99 - 104.5
- re-tracked
Encoded to flac 8 with TLH, tagged with foobar2000
01 Feeling Gravitys Pull
02 Harborcoat
03 Maps And Legends
04 Pilgrimage
05 Talk About The Passion
06 Sitting Still
07 “turn on the house lights”
08 “what the fuck are we gonna do here?”
09 “everyone relax, OK?”
10 Dream (All I Have To Do Is)
11 “damned to a life of middle-aged degradation and mediocrity”
12 Driver 8
13 Swan Swan H
14 (Don't Go Back To) Rockville
15 So. Central Rain
16 Time After Time (Annelise)
17 Can't Get There From Here
18 Pretty Persuasion
19 Old Man Kensey
20 Life And How To Live It
21 Toys In The Attic
22 Second Guessing
23 Bandwagon
24 See No Evil
Total time: 84:19
Revised by Bert13
May 2021
Original notes R.E.M. Reconstruction tour - 20th anniversary series, Volume 14 release (2005):
This is one of the most unique shows the band has ever played, due to the unplanned acoustic set and interesting comments. The show was in a college gym with general admission seating, although there were no seats. The crowd, as they usually do in such situations, pushed to the front. The band thought things were getting out of control and stopped playing. They returned to play the acoustic set, took another break, and then played electric for the rest of the show. They were definitely in a hurry to get through the encores since they only played 4 songs, and they run through them without ever stopping.
The situation with the crowd was clearly distracting the band, since there are several missed chords. In addition, they were not pleased with the way the Minutemen were treated by the audience. My brother saw this show, the previous night in Richmond, and the December 9 show. At the time he said that this one was definitely the best of the run because of the acoustic set and overall energy.
Despite all of the crowd problems, there is surprisingly no audience interference with the recording. I know the lineage for this one, but the sound is not great. You can still clearly hear everything despite it having sort of a muffled sound, so it's a B, but don't let the mediocre quality scare you away. This show is fascinating.
I indexed separate tracks for some of the stories and comments because what happens between songs is often as interesting as the actual performances.
********************end Bert 13 revision text********************
Better than the UDG CDR but still a C