Look what happened in the sleepy, college town of Athens, GA last night: R.E.M. made a surprise (or very carefully orchestrated) appearance at the fabulous 40 Watt Club during a benefit for local charities Community Connection and Family Connection/Communities in Schools.

Wow. Looks like a pretty good time, huh? At this point (since we weren’t actually there) we’ll let longtime R.E.M. “advisor” Bertis Downs take it…

Billed as Finest Worksongs: Athens Bands Play the Music of R.E.M., the night featured many of the town’s top current-day musicians, everyone from Claire Campbell from Hope for agoldensummer, to Tin Cup Prophette, to the Modern Skirts, to Bain Mattox, to Bill Doss of the Sunshine Fix, accompanied by a torrent of people from the various Elephant Six Collective bands (known last night as The Observatory), to Patterson Hood with some of the Drive-by Truckers, to Five Eight to R.E.M., comprised of the original Berry, Buck, Mills and Stipe…needless to say, it was fun for all.

For me, the mood was captured during the Modern Skirts’ moving version of one of R.E.M.’s early songs Perfect Circle: “….a perfect circle of acquaintences and friends….”; it was indeed that: many familiar faces from over the years, both onstage and off, musicians playing with each other, with Bain doing accordian duty with the Skirts on the sparkling “Find the River,” as well as accompanying his wife Amanda (Tin Cup Prophette) on an eerie “Nightswimming”… and what tasty choices of “Tongue” and “Leave” by Amanda and band … and speaking of inspired sets, how about the Observatory’s picks of “Feeling Gravitys Pull,” “Pilgrimage,” “Underneath the Bunker” and “These Days”…not to mention the originals doing a short set of “Begin the Begin” and “South Central Rain”…as the night progressed, the Five-Eighters were on fire with mostly rockers (e.g., “Radio Free Europe” b/w “Sitting Still”), but also a tremendous guitar-only take on “Leaving New York”—I particularly appreciated the liberties taken with the classic “Driver 8” (Fiver-8)—the incomparable Patterson and friends romping through everything from “Burning Hell” (it took a minute to remember that one), “Belong,” “Second Guessing,” and “So. Central Rain” (joined by Peter and Mike) to a rollicking version of “Rockville”….Bain doing stunning record-quality versions of “Finest Worksong” and “Losing My Religion,” then a slowed-down, dark take on “Fall on Me”…Claire gamely opening the music with other-worldly interpretations of “Swan Swan H” and “Wendell Gee,” and hours later, everybody climbing onstage for a crowded finale of “End of the World” (what else!?)

What else, indeed. And talk about a supergroup. The Raconwhos? R.E.M., Pylon, Five Eight, the Truckers, and The Modern Skirts?! That’s almost as good as this supergroup seated in the front row at the (gag reflex) Diesel fashion show.

And, of course, there’s a whole bunch of crappy little videos on YouTube.

Billboard talks to lead Trucker Patterson Hood about the show.

• DOWNLOAD: Gardening At Night (Slower Electric Demo)

• DOWNLOAD: Life And How To Live It (Live 1987)

• DOWNLOAD: R.E.M. at the 1985 Werchter Festival (FM Broadcast)

• BUY: When The Light Is Mine (DVD) and And I Feel Fine: 1982-1987 (CD)

And don’t forget to set those TiVo’s; Georgia Public Broadcasting will broadcast the Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards this Saturday night, September 16th, at 8:30 PM. The show will air again on September 22nd.

• (via remhq)