Friday’s Greensboro, N.C. Jan. 22, 1982 soundboard recording (quality: EX; ‘File Under Kudzu’ boot CD rip, revised Jan. 2026)
LINEAGE: online download of flac files (File Under Kudzu bootleg CD rip) > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for normalization & DC offset, re-tracking, removing dead spots, fades, tagging > flac NO EQ, COMPRESSION or DIGITAL FILTERING
ROB SEZ: As received, this was a startlingly clear and crisp recording, well suited to a knock-you-off-your-chair performance by R. E. M. The debut single was out and most of the Chronic Town debut EP had been recorded. This gig marks the live debut of Catapult (already sounding fully formed and nearly ready for the studio), and features a best-ever cover of Ghost Riders In the Sky, plus a one-off song with no title. If I were to rank best R. E. M. performances from the early 1980s, this would easily make my top 5. January 1982 found the band barnstorming its way through Georgia and N.C., with many more gigs and states to follow in the ensuing months. R. E. M. also played Friday's on Nov. 6, 1981.
The only source I know for this performance is the bootleg CD File Under Kudzu, my starting point for this revision. If anyone offers awards for worthy bootlegs, this one should be nominated. Great choice of performance, extraordinary sound quality, and nice packaging (see image scans from Discogs in the download folder). I can't claim this is necessarily a sonic upgrade compared to other versions. In light of how amazing the performance and recording already were, I was looking for an excuse to share it. A light revision and re-tracking job is my justification, and I feel this is a better listening experience than previous versions.
For context, here's Peter Buck from an interview by David Fricke in 1990 (from R. E. M. The Rolling Stone Files):
“There was a place in Greensboro, North Carolina, called Friday’s. It was a pizza parlor, and the guy had bands play. It was an L-shaped room; you could see through the bar to the ovens, with the guy with the long stick with pizzas on it, and see us, too. He’d charge a dollar, we’d get 150 people in there, and we’d get the door. People would let us sleep on the floor. There were clubs like that in every city.”
FM recording (courtesy of the McKenzie Tapes project)
Sound quality: VG to VG+
LINEAGE: McKenzie Tapes recording (16-bit wave file) > Adobe Audition 2025 for de-noising, phase correction, and normalization > AIFF file > Audacity 3.7 for Mac for track splits, 1 additional pass of NR, and EQ > FLAC
SAMPLE: West of the Fields (live 1984-10-06)
01 Harborcoat 02 West of the Fields
03 Kohoutek 04 Pilgrimage 05 7 Chinese Bros. 06 So. Central Rain (I'm Sorry) 07 Hyena 08 (Don't Go Back to) Rockville 09 Barney Miller Theme - Chicken Train
10 Sitting Still 11 Letter Never Sent 12 Gardening at Night (fades in) 13 9-9 - Frogmore - Windout 14 Old Man Kensey 15 Pretty Persuasion 16 band exit - crowd - return to stage 17 Little America 18 Second Guessing 19 Paint It Black 20 In the Year 2525 (false start) 21 In the Year 2525 22 We Walk w. Behind Closed Doors 23 Femme Fatale 24 1,000,000
25 Moon River
This recording is missing the first song played as well as the final 5.
About this recording & performance: I started with a diamond-in-the-rough lossless recording kindly provided by Tom G. from the McKenzie Tapes Project (learn more at themckenzietapes.com). The recording had no known lineage, but my ears heard a generated FM recording that suffered from multiple deficiencies. On a quality scale, I would have rated it a C-. After a couple of attempts at digital revision over the past 2 years, I’m finally happy with the result. It’s now a decent-sounding FM recording that merits an overall grade of B in my rating system, with just a few sections that dip slightly. In sum, this is quite listenable, even for fans who only want to hear higher quality recordings. Performance wise, this is one to savor: the band is on, and having fun — tight and confident this far into the tour, but loose enough to play requests (ex: a rousing version of the rarely-played Paint It Black). This is one of my favorite live recordings by the band in 1984.
UPGRADE: Although this is not a substantial upgrade in sound quality compared to the older versions in circulation, this one features phase & speed correction. Overall, it's the best this recording has sounded. The performance is spectacular!
01 Just a Touch 02 Ages of You 03 1,000,000 04 Get On Their Way
05 There She Goes Again
What the heck is Bill doing with that shoe??
06 Action
07 Wait* 08 Sitting Still 09 Permanent Vacation 10 Mystery to Me 11 White Tornado 12 I Can't Control Myself 13 Burning Down 14 Shaking Through 15 Laughing 16 Romance 17 Pretty Persuasion 18 That Beat 19 Stumble 20 Radio Free Europe 21 Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars)
22 The Lion Sleeps Tonight 23 Skank 24 Gardening at Night
25 Windout
26 9-9
soundcheck: 27 unknown instrumental 28 Sitting Still 29 1,000,000 30 The Lion Sleeps Tonight
*On "Wait," Lynda Stipe and Cyndy Stipe sing backing vocals
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