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Events on Saturday 5 April 1980 1
1980First performance -- Stipes birthday partyR.E.M. perform their first concert on 5 April 1980 at a party held in a converted church in Athens, Georgia. The band -- Stipe, Buck, Mills and Berry, who had been playing together for a few weeks -- play a set of covers and original songs with Stipe reading lyrics from a music stand. The concert goes well enough to convince them to continue. The name R.E.M. -- Rapid Eye Movement, the stage of sleep associated with dreaming -- is chosen from a dictionary almost at random. They book their first tour, playing the southeastern United States in a van.