When R.E.M. almost came to blows with a heckler
Whilst they might be one of the world’s best-selling music acts and regarded as one of the most influential indie bands of all time, with the likes of Nirvana and Pavement citing their significance, in the early days, R.E.M. were no strangers to an adverse reaction from the crowd. Even when the band started to gain more prominence thanks to the brilliance of 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, some audience members weren’t afraid to jeer at the Athens, Georgia quartet.
By this point in their career, the Michael Stipe-fronted band were starting to come into their own musically, establishing a cult following with their jangly guitar music that fused touches of psychedelia with Southern Gothic and pop. Demonstrating how positively things were moving for the band, Fables of the Reconstruction climbed to number 28 on the Billboard 200 in the US, and the single ‘Can’t Get There from Here’ was played on MTV.
When supporting the album on the ‘Reconstruction I’ tour, R.E.M. landed at Barrymore’s Music Hall in Ottawa, Canada, on August 17th, 1985. As reported, the first part of their set, which featured cuts such as ‘Radio Free Europe’ and ‘Driver 8’ was performed uninterrupted. However, when the band returned to the stage for their extensive encore, which comprised a host of covers, including the classic Aubrey Hepburn hit ‘Moon River’, a stark change in mood occurred.
What happened is relayed in Robert Dean Lurie’s biography, Begin the Begin: R.E.M.’s Early Years (via Dangerous Minds). Lurie writes: “After running through their regular set list, the band was heckled with cries of ‘Fuck off!’ when they encored with ‘Moon River’. This almost resulted in a fight: [bassist Mike] Mills allegedly had to be restrained from attacking the heckler. A couple of songs later, [guitarist Peter] Buck couldn’t let it go. ‘The guy who yelled ‘Fuck you’ during ‘Moon River’: Meet me backstage, you asshole.'”
He continues: “Further heckling ensued, but instead of storming off (which the band had sometimes done in similar situations), R.E.M. elected to play an entire second set of mostly cover songs—including punishing, shambolic versions of ‘Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room’ (originally performed by Brownsville Station but mistakenly attributed by Mills to Bachman Turner Overdrive), ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, and ‘God Save the Queen’, interspersed with deranged monologues from [singer Michael] Stipe and Mills.”
According to the publication, Lurie writes that the Fables of the Reconstruction era would mark the end of R.E.M.’s old approach to touring, with their following tours much more structured affairs, undertaken in a professional manner, wherein flashpoints such as the above became increasingly less likely. Furthermore, over the latter half of the decade, the band would really come into their own, with 1988’s Green seeing the band expand their sound before they entered the mainstream in the early 1990s with albums such as 1991’s Out of Time and the following year’s Automatic for the People, which featured classics such as ‘Man on the Moon’ and ‘Everybody Hurts’.
Check out the R.E.M.’s full setlist at Barrymore’s Music Hall, 1985, below.
R.E.M. live at Barrymore’s Music Hall, August 1985 setlist:
Main set:
- ‘Feeling Gravity’s Pull’
- ‘Radio Free Europe’
- ‘Letter Never Sent’
- ‘Pills’
- ‘Can’t Get There From Here’
- ‘7 Chinese Bros.’
- ‘Laughing’
- ‘Driver 8’
- ‘Maps and Legends’
- ‘Fall on Me’
- ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain?’
- ‘West of the Fields’
- ‘Auctioneer (Another Engine)’
- ‘Old Man Kensey’
- ‘Pretty Persuasion’
- ‘Moral Kiosk’
- ‘Life and How to Live It’
Encore:
- Moon River’
- ‘I Can’t Control Myself’
- ‘1,000,000’
- ‘I Can Only Give You Everything’
- ‘Tired of Singing Trouble/Boy (Go)’
- ‘In the Year 2525’
- ‘Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room’
- ‘Sweet Home Alabama’
- ‘(I’m Not Your) Stepping Stone’
- ‘Secret Agent Man’
- ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’
- ‘God Save the Queen’
- ‘Roadrunner’
- ’20th Century Boy’
- ‘Skank’
- ‘Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars)’
