R.E.M. - Live at the Raleigh Underground (10th October 1982) (PRIVATE REMASTER)

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the release of "Murmur" and somehow I stumbled upon the existence of this video which I'd never seen before. I love early R.E.M. especially "Chronic Town" and "Murmur"-era, so to get to see the band profusely sweating out these songs at such an early stage, and pro-shot, is just fascinating bliss.

This was filmed less than two months after "Chronic Town" was released on I.R.S. and it's an outstanding document. It is also the earliest known professionally show footage of an R.E.M. show.

The setlist:

1. Wolves, Lower 0:52
2. Laughing 5:41
3. 1,000,000 9:46
(NOTE: Mitch Easter, who produced "Chronic Town" as well as "Murmur" and "Reckoning" (with Don Dixon), joins the band on guitar)
4. Moral Kiosk 13:07
5. Catapult 16:25
6. West of the Fields 20:14
7. Radio Free Europe 23:15
8. Ages of You 27:59
(NOTE: Originally intended for "Chronic Town", replaced by "Wolves, Lower" at the request of Miles Copeland, later turned up on "Dead Letter Office")
9. We Walk 31:45
10. Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars) 35:38
(NOTE: As identified by peechpanda in the comments section, Peter Holsapple appears to join the band on guitar for this song)
11. Skank (Jam) 40:25

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The remaster (geeky stuff follows):

Feel free to compare the other upload on here    • Видео  

I managed to source a DVD quality version of unknown generation and set to work with the audio and video. The source appears to be a VHS recording of a broadcast on cable TV (Google tells me a complete master exists and was possibly sold on eBay to a Japanese collector, other sources say it is in the possession of R.E.M. It is also rumoured to be of the whole show, this presented here is just an edit)

The audio was drenched in noise. I have may been a little too liberal with the reduction but the result isn't awful (at worst closed hi-hat sounds suffer the most from the noise reduction, apologies, but really the overall benefit outweighs the cons). Some simple EQ'ing is all that was required, especially in an attempt to get a little (but unfortunately not a lot) more out of the low-end (the kick drum and Mike Mills' bass were grossly under-represented).

The video is what it is. A recording of a broadcast on a cable channel. And it's the best we're going to get for a while! No video noise reduction was applied. Colour correction and contrast adjustments were made (now the band aren't looking jaundiced!) Shots from one camera (the one mostly looking up from the crowd) are dark and so the adjustments have meant you may have lost some murky, noisy details in an attempt to give the image some punch. Don't shoot me.

Enjoy!