Same as you, R.E.M. was hugely formative and influential and was a really fortunate entry point to what bands should sound like and what kind of instrumentation is good in a band and how guitars should sound and what song lyrics should be like and how easily or not they ought to be audible and understandable.
Also same as you, Fables was around the first time I heard (of) them, and I’m pretty sure Can’t Get Here was among the first songs heard and I wasn’t knocked over. Then Pageant came out and somehow I learned about that. My memory—hazy but with some vivid patches—is that when the Pageant record was new, I heard many of the songs on an alt-radio or college-radio show. Not our local college radio, where I did hear that and lots more good stuff, but something on FM that I might’ve picked up out of Elkhart or South Bend, but maybe only receivable in good weather. I feel like there was a show called Night Train or Night Tracks or Night Life or something like that, and they had a Top 20. You might know/remember what I’m talking about. I think I caught that show a few weeks in a row, heard Fall On Me, These Days, I Believe, Superman and it was all over after that.
That setlist from the Purdue show is unreal. You’d think I’d remember Orange Crush, but no recollection. What I do remember is that 2nd encore, them walking back out, then Pop Song 89. I don’t remember if they said anything like “here’s a new song” but it was a song I’d never heard and so I at least thought it was new, and I thought something like “Holy shit, they’re making even MORE great songs.”
Some recollections from that shared time:
Same as you, R.E.M. was hugely formative and influential and was a really fortunate entry point to what bands should sound like and what kind of instrumentation is good in a band and how guitars should sound and what song lyrics should be like and how easily or not they ought to be audible and understandable.
Also same as you, Fables was around the first time I heard (of) them, and I’m pretty sure Can’t Get Here was among the first songs heard and I wasn’t knocked over. Then Pageant came out and somehow I learned about that. My memory—hazy but with some vivid patches—is that when the Pageant record was new, I heard many of the songs on an alt-radio or college-radio show. Not our local college radio, where I did hear that and lots more good stuff, but something on FM that I might’ve picked up out of Elkhart or South Bend, but maybe only receivable in good weather. I feel like there was a show called Night Train or Night Tracks or Night Life or something like that, and they had a Top 20. You might know/remember what I’m talking about. I think I caught that show a few weeks in a row, heard Fall On Me, These Days, I Believe, Superman and it was all over after that.
That setlist from the Purdue show is unreal. You’d think I’d remember Orange Crush, but no recollection. What I do remember is that 2nd encore, them walking back out, then Pop Song 89. I don’t remember if they said anything like “here’s a new song” but it was a song I’d never heard and so I at least thought it was new, and I thought something like “Holy shit, they’re making even MORE great songs.”