Less than a week ago, the Athens Historical Society hosted a program called “R.E.M. in Perspective: An Athens History.” The event featured panelists with all kinds of connections, including Kathleen O’Brien Layson, the woman who threw herself a birthday party in April 1980 and talked her friends into playing their first concert that night.

Eric Zimmerman over at R.E.M. Ring has some good info on the event. I was particularly interested to hear about the long-lost videos that were screened that night, including the infamous Wuxtry session that marks one of the earliest-known recording of the band. Now people got to see the video.

My first impressions of the band during this era was just how young and green they looked, with the exception of Michael. The others looked like clean cut college kids, Peter and Mike especially, who had the look that he just ditched their High School Calculus class.

I really hope this video and the early concert footage (“Michael Stipe was at a very early point a powerful frontman. While watching this video, the first words that came to mind were ‘Whirling Dervish.'”) also shown that night end up available to the public one day. They really are pieces of history.