02.10.1986
USA, Eugene, University of Oregon, EMU Ballroom
Pageantry Tour Eugene
vg / exc. Aud.

01. These Days [3:18]
02. Harborcoat [4:49]
03. Pilgrimage [4:24]
04. The One I Love [3:46]
05. Shaking Through [4:13]
06. Feeling Gravity’s Pull [5:52]
07. Driver 8 [4:53]
08. Underneath the Bunker [1:41]
09. The Flowers of Guatemala [4:41]
10. I Believe [3:40]
11. Swan Swan H [3:42]
12. Superman [3:13]
13. Can't Get There From Here [3:48]
14. Old Man Kensey [4:04]
15. Pretty Persuasion [3:45]
16. Auctioneer (Another Engine) [4:47]
17. Little America [3:09]
18. Second Guessing [6:12]
19. Fall on Me [3:33]
20. Paint It Black [5:01]
21. Sweet Jane [4:04]
22. Strange [3:25]
23. Harpers [2:18]
24. Begin the Begin [3:36]
25. Cuyahoga [4:31]
26. Toys in the Attic [2:53]
27. Funtime [4:05]

Total Running Time: [1:47:23]

WG Master Recording / JEMS 2020 transfer + remaster

Recording gear: 929 stereo mic > Sony D-6
 
JEMS 2020 Transfer: WG Maxell XL-II S master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.4.2 (24/96 capture to .wav) > iZotope RX and Ozone > 16/44 resample FLAC > tracking and finishing with Audacity and TLH

Musicians:

Bill Berry (drums, vocals)
Peter Buck (guitar)
Mike Mills (bass, vocals)
Michael Stipe (lead vocals, harmonica)

With Buren Fowler (guitar)

Notes:
By dint of organic growth and a more accessible sound, 1986 found R.E.M. gaining in popularity. Just a year before, I saw them at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley; now, in a stroke of luck, they played in a university ballroom that held perhaps a tenth as many people. I was there, and I should have taped it. Our longtime ally WG was there too, and he did. 

This file set features a fresh, azimuth-adjusted playback and transfer of his master tapes. With a new sonic once-over, this version serves as a material upgrade. Save for bits missing from two songs (“These Days,” “I Believe”) and another (“Second Guessing”) marred due to tape misalignment, the capture is terrific.

Like other '86 recordings, October 2 is a helping of high-grade, mission-critical stuff. It was a great rock show, with an edgy vibe that occasionally felt spooky. A couple of times, it felt dangerous: I've never seen a performer put himself out there the way Michael Stipe did in Eugene.

At the first chorus of “The One I Love” — in 1986, more of a deep-seated, primal exhortation than the single-word refrain to a Top 10 single, as it would be just a year later — Stipe grabbed the mic stand and thrashed: in that instant, I thought that he'd been electrocuted. It was a jolt that ran through the set and a moment that haunts me today. In the R.E.M. shows I saw after Eugene, nothing like that ever recurred. (Stipe alluded to some of this the next night, aware that he may have frightened people in Eugene.)

Over the years, I've been wary about listening to this: it's a fine document, but could anything recreate this gig the way I remember it? What I hear now is an instance of a young band playing exceptionally well. The can't-miss setlist — most of Lifes Rich Pageant, and a trove of covers that was as realized as it was imaginative — is part of the story, too. The band is in great form, and despite their repeated requests for everyone to move back, good humor abounds.

No complete Pageantry tour soundboard recording has ever circulated, and I’d wager that no ’86 date was professionally recorded to multi-track. Like Bruce Springsteen’s 1977 tour, terrific audience recordings are the rule, and from places one might not expect. Whatever search happened at the EMU was likely for something other than taping equipment. 

Needless to say, I regret not taping this show. AMorg and I stood fairly close to the stage; though jostling persisted throughout, the setting was suitably dark and the floor was spacious enough (there were no seats) to remain in line with the PA.

BK provides WG’s recording — a solid one in the first place — with a very nice enhancement. (BK ran point on JEMS masters in ’86 for R.E.M. shows in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC; Jared did the honors in Santa Barbara and Oakland — collect ’em all!) 

If I could pick a point in time for the musical wayback machine to transport me, right up there with The Who in 1970, The Grateful Dead in 1977, and Bruce Springsteen in Los Angeles in 1981, I’d strongly consider October 2, 1986. With a recorder (and a camera). But of course, I was there already.

Thanks again to WG and BK.

Share it freely, and for free!

- slipkid68