R.E.M. - Sports Arena, San Diego, California - October 28, 1995

We should have seen R.E.M. much earlier that year actually, but all in all I think everything worked out perfectly really.

When we found out that they were coming to town originally, we actually went down to the Sports Arena on the day the tickets went on sale and queued up to get better seats. Since you could almost walk there from where we lived, it seemed like a much more logical plan than trying to dial in to ticketbastard (this was still pre-internet days).

We were not fanatical about it or anything – no camping out – but we did arrive fairly early in the morning and there were probably about 50 or so die-hard REM fans there. As I remember, we all got numbers to be in the line that we actually took to the window with us. I don’t really remember any issues or scalper stuff, but perhaps my memory is bad.

Anyhow, we bought some decent seats at what we thought was a really over-inflated price. I guess this was really at the peak of REM’s popularity, they Green and Automatic for the People had really taken them mainstream and they were touring to support Monster, which had a hit with ‘What’s the Frequency Kenneth?’ as well. They had a pretty intellectual following and Michael Stipe was starting to become an icon for political issues as well as music. All of that success was reflected in the price of the tickets – as I remember, $68 each, which was outrageous at the time when most tickets were still in the twenty to thirty dollar range. We grumbled a bit about the price but figured it would be worth it.

A little while after we bought the tickets, the drummer Bill Berry had a brain aneurysm on stage at a different show and REM cancelled all of their tour dates until further notice. We got a full refund on the tickets and thought, oh well, maybe we will see them someday.

As it turned out, they did come back through in October, but this time, our friend JB managed to get us free tickets to the show through a connection with a local radio station. They were really great seats too, much better than our paid ones.

About the concert itself – I remember that Michael Stipe was scary skinny – anorexic looking – and he danced kind of funny, like my friend DA. The show was okay – not fabulous – if we had paid, we would have been disappointed. But given that it was free, well, woo hoo!