R.E.M. instructed CBS Mornings this week that it could take a comet for them to play collectively once more. Properly, apparently they noticed one.
For the primary time in almost 16 years, the foursome reunited to sing “Shedding My Faith” on the Songwriters Corridor of Fame gala in New York on Thursday night time (June 13).
The efficiency was preceded by Jason Isbell, who feted them with a spirited, note-perfect rendition of the tongue-twisting “It’s the Finish of the World as We Know It (And I Really feel Nice),” a track he stated he discovered when he was 10 years previous. “R.E.M. was larger than the sum of its components. R.E.M. moved like a single instrument,” he stated.
The Athens, Georgia, foursome — Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Invoice Berry and Peter Buck — then got here collectively onstage, with Stipe talking for all 4. “Writing songs and having a catalog of labor that we’re all pleased with that’s on the market for the remainder of the world forever is hands-down a very powerful side of what we did. Second to that’s that we managed to take action all these a long time and stay pals. And never simply pals, pricey pals,” he stated.
“We’re 4 those that very early on determined that we’d personal our personal masters and we might cut up our royalties and songwriting credit equally,” he continued. “All for one and one for all.”
In a gracious transfer, Stipe then rapidly learn an extended record of thank yous to those that prolonged again to its early days on I.R.S. Information up by way of Warner Information, earlier than concluding by thanking the band’s longtime supervisor Bertis Downs.
The band then took middle stage, picked up their devices and, as Stipe stated, “Right here’s what we did.”
The band’s final full live performance was in November 2008 in Mexico Metropolis. The foursome performed a personal celebration for Downs in 2016 however had not carried out publicly since 2008.
R.E.M. had been among the many 2024 inductees into the Songwriters Corridor of Fame alongside Steely Dan (Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker) and Hillary Lindsey, Timothy Mosley (Timbaland), Dean Pitchford and the late Cindy Wlaker on the Marriott Marquis Lodge in New York Metropolis on Thursday night time.
