R.E.M.'s first gig
Very shiny, very happy people
Alex Q. Arbuckle
May 16, 1980
In January 1980, University of Georgia student Michael Stipe, who was studying painting and photography, struck up a friendship with Peter Buck, a fellow student and clerk at the Wuxtry record store in Athens. The two shared a taste for “weird” records, and within a couple months they decided to start writing music and form a band. They soon joined with two more students, drummer Bill Berry and bassist Mike Mills, best friends who had played together for years. Their first performance, before they had yet settled on a name, was at a friend’s birthday party on April 5. Sometime soon after, the group was brainstorming names, and (as the legend goes) Stipe opened a dictionary to a random page and settled on “R.E.M.,” the term for the Rapid Eye Movement that occurs during sleep. On May 16, the four played their first gig as R.E.M., opening for a band called The Brains in a free concert at the student center in the University of Georgia’s Memorial Hall.They all dropped out of school that year.
