With more than 27 years passed, you would think almost every piece of R.E.M. history would be well out there in the public eye, especially with the band’s support of Internet release of live tracks.

You can get pretty much every show recorded back in the early days somewhere. A year or so agao, the earliest known recording on the band came out – a May 1980 show that is just incredible to hear. I thought that was the last thing that would come out of hiding.

I was wrong. Next month, there will be a special screening in Athens of two unreleased videos. The videos are both from 1980. One is a rehearsal in the Wuxtry record store where Peter Buck used to work. I believe the audio from this video is widely available. The other video is a concert at an Atlanta club.

A comment on that link above says the videos won’t reach wide circulation, which kind of sucks. But we can always hold out hope.