Tour of Canada

They toured Canada in July and August 1985, and Europe in October of that year, including the Netherlands, England (including one concert at London’s Hammersmith Palais ), Ireland, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and West Germany. On October 2, 1985, the group played a concert in Bochum , West Germany, for the German TV show Rockpalast . Stipe had bleached his hair blond during this time. R.E.M. invited Los Angeles punk band Minutemen to open for them on part of the US tour, and later organized a benefit for the family of Minutemen frontman D. Boon , who died in a December 1985 car crash shortly after the tour’s conclusion. Fables of the Reconstruction performed poorly in Europe and its critical reception was mixed, with some critics regarding it as dreary and poorly recorded. As with the previous records, the singles from Fables of the Reconstruction were mostly ignored by mainstream radio; I.R.S. was becoming frustrated with the band’s reluctance to achieve mainstream success.