On October 6th, 1984, R.E.M. played at Graham Chapel in St. Louis on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. In 2013, alumnus Ryan Rhea penned a retrospective article highlighting many of the musicians/artists that performed on campus the prior five decades. A portion of the article included a great summary of the concert:
Alternative rock pioneers R.E.M. played Graham Chapel on Oct. 6, 1984, along with opening act the dB’s (who opened with an a cappella cover of “Chapel of Love,” befitting the occasion). Rene Spencer Saller, AB ’89, MA ’90, recalls that R.E.M.’s jangly, murky sound, along with Michael Stipe’s cryptic lyrics, managed to blend well with the less-than-perfect acoustics of the chapel. Touring on their second album, Reckoning, the band had yet to enjoy the tremendous worldwide success their subsequent albums would bring. At Washington University, R.E.M. played songs that would appear in the following year’s Fables of the Reconstruction album, as well as highlights from their first two albums; they even played the theme from TV show Barney Miller, followed by “Chicken Train” by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils (who have also played Wash. U.).
R.E.M. performed two playful encore sets for the receptive Graham Chapel crowd, each consisting mainly of cover songs (e.g., “Paint It, Black,” “In the Year 2525,” [which culminated with Michael Stipe’s inspired paraphrasing of the Max Ehrmann poem Desiderata], and, joined by members of the dB’s to close out the show, “Sloop John B,” “Born on the Bayou,” and “Gloria”). Musician and Euclid Records employee Steve Scariano recalls Stipe singing a great a cappella version of “Moon River.”
Steve Pick of Euclid Records remembers guitarist Peter Buck and the dB’s working up a cover of Television’s “See No Evil” before the show, which they played for the first time that evening and later became a regular encore on the tour.
“The show was great,” Saller says, “but what I remember most was going to an after-party with the band.” In fact, a number of attendees ended up at the party in the Central West End (hosted by a friend of Michael Stipe’s from when Stipe lived in Collinsville, Ill.), where reportedly the beer and conversation flowed.
You can check out the full article here. In addition to their performance, the tape also includes a short, but very cool interview with Peter Buck on WLIR in Long Island. His conversation with the DJ occurred in early 1984, prior to the April release of Reckoning, and references the band’s 1983 performance at Shea Stadium in support of The Police.
