Very cool '80's live debuts and a tip of the blues cap to a singer who was living history as it happened, which is most definitely coolsville...

REM Perform At Las Ventas Bullring In Madrid
Michael Stipe; REM concert, Madrid, Oct. 2008. (Photo: Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)
loading...

4/5/1979 (40 years ago today) - Duran Duran played their first live show ever at The Lecture Theatre at Birmingham Polytechnic in England -- Could anyone have predicted...: By 1984, they will have sold over 10 million records worldwide!

4/5/1980 (39 years ago today) - R.E.M. played their first live show ever at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia -- It was actually a birthday party for a friend, but the band did not have an evening's worth of original material to perform yet, so the 350 people that were there got to hear a batch of choice cover versions, including The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen", Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" and "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" by The Monkees. Sweet!

4/5/1981 (38 years ago today) - He's on the short list of people that can make this claim: Singer-songwriter-guitarist and boogie-'n'-blues-enthusiast Bob 'The Bear' Hite was the frontman for Canned Heat when the band played both the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock in 1969! -- The rock and roll lifestyle finally caught up with him on this date: Bob passed away after suffering a heart attack, just 36 years old at the time.

Share your explanations with the Calendar here on our web site and on the WBLM Facebook and Twitter pages with the hashtag #TommysCoffeeBreak.

"I smell like I sound...", xoxo!

More From 102.9 WBLM