“We were thrilled to be in England. I was discovering the joy of a pint of bitter”: R.E.M.’s Mike Mills looks back on the band’s first ever UK show

28 Sep 2024, 07:00 · louder

By Niall Doherty
( Classic Rock )
published 28 September 2024

The Athens, Georgia quartet made their British bow in Camden, with Lemmy and Phil Lynott there to witness it

(Image credit: Paul Natkin/Getty Images)

Even when they were one of the biggest bands in the world, R.E.M. still loved the odd surprise show in an intimate London venue. There was the occasion just days after the release of Out Of Time in 1991 when they played a pair of shows at the Borderline billed as Bingo Hand Job, or the moment when they performed in front of 200 lucky fans at St James’s Church in Piccadilly in 2004. But Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Peter Buck and Bill Berry never did make it back to Dingwalls.

The Camden venue was the scene of their first ever UK show back on November 19, 1983 and a couple of years ago, bassist Mills shared his memories of the show with this writer. “Lemmy was there,” he began. “I’d like to say he had come to see us but I think he had other interests on his mind. Phil Lynott was there as well. We had a good crowd, we had a lot of fun. We were thrilled to be in England. I was discovering the joy of a pint of bitter. It was a super time.”

When asked if 80s Britain took a bit of getting used to – we didn’t exactly have a rep for the finest cuisine back then, Mills said that it required a little acclimatising to the alien surroundings. “It was definitely a culture shock,” he recalled. “Literally from the culture, the way housing was set up, the way the television was rather strange. There wasn't really a whole lot to eat except curry, which is fine, we love curry, but there wasn't much else. It was a very limited selection of places to eat. The weather was strange. It was fine. This is one reason you get in a band, to explore new places and and see how your music goes over among people that have been raised differently than you. It was a challenge and one which we were happy to accept.”

By the end of that decade, R.E.M. would be playing some of the biggest venues in the land. But there were always happy to take the odd trip back to places where could see the whites of the audience’s eyes.

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Niall Doherty

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleagues Ted Kessler and Chris Catchpole. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more. Radiohead was only for eight minutes but he still counts it.

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