Albums That Should Exist: R.E.M. - Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 6-9-1984

Friday, January 6, 2023

R.E.M. - Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 6-9-1984

Here's a very nice R.E.M. concert I just came across, so it goes to the top of my pile of albums to post.

I was looking for R.E.M. BBC material as part of my larger BBC project. I didn't find anything really good from the band's very early years, but this is of similar excellent sound quality, despite being officially unreleased. That's because it's the audio to an MTV show called "Rock Influences: Folk Rock." One nice thing about it is that it has a couple of guest stars at the end: Roger McGuinn of the Byrds and John Sebastian of the Lovin' Spoonful. I suppose that ties in with the name of the TV show, since those are folk rock stars who influenced R.E.M.

Nearly all the songs come from a pristine soundboard bootleg. However, the three songs at the end with guests McGuinn and Sebastian do not. But that's okay, because I found a YouTube video of the show that includes them as well, and the sound quality of those tracks are also excellent. The one snag is that there's no intro to those (and I imagine there was some kind of reaction when the guests came on stage), and the applause was quickly cut off after each song. For those three songs, I patched in more applause from other songs earlier in the show, so hopefully that sounds normal. But if anyone has a different bootleg with the intros to those last songs, please let me know.

By the way, one more thing regarding those songs with the guests. The Byrds song "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" was basically sung by McGuinn, with R.E.M. chiming in on backing vocals. That's the same case with Sebastian singing "Do You Believe in Magic." But for the final song, "Gloria," R.E.M. lead singer Michael Stipe sang it. McGuinn was on stage, as can be seen in the YouTube video, but he just helped with backing vocals and strummed along with his guitar.

The songs "Hyena," "Old Man Kensey," and "Driver 8" were played in public for the first time in this concert.

This concert is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 talk (R.E.M.)
02 Pale Blue Eyes (R.E.M.)
03 Second Guessing (R.E.M.)
04 Hyena (R.E.M.)
05 Letter Never Sent (R.E.M.)
06 Harborcoat (R.E.M.)
07 talk (R.E.M.)
08 Seven Chinese Brothers (R.E.M.)
09 talk (R.E.M.)
10 Pretty Persuasion (R.E.M.)
11 So. Central Rain (R.E.M.)
12 Gardening at Night (R.E.M.)
13 9-9 (R.E.M.)
14 Windout (R.E.M.)
15 Old Man Kensey (R.E.M.)
16 Sitting Still (R.E.M.)
17 talk (R.E.M.)
18 Driver 8 (R.E.M.)
19 Carnival of Sorts [Boxcars] (R.E.M.)
20 talk (R.E.M.)
21 Radio Free Europe (R.E.M.)
22 Little America (R.E.M.)
23 So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star (R.E.M. & Roger McGuinn)
24 Do You Believe in Magic (R.E.M. & John Sebastian)
25 Gloria (R.E.M. with Roger McGuinn)