Great read, so well written. And we have similar taste in music. If the acts you mentioned, while in HS I saw R.E.M. a few times in their early days, so small campus shows, I saw the Violent Femmes in the same time period at a very small venue, and I saw New Order as a sophomore in my college's small hundreds of years old auditorium. My friends and I were first in line for tickets the night before they went on sale and the only ones sheltered from the rain by the overhang of the entrance (and warmed by blackberry brandy).