I admit that I stopped paying such devotedly close attention to R.E.M. after Bill Berry sadly departed and left them adrift in a sea of semi-mediocrity in which they slowly drowned their staggering legacy with a slew of half baked album releases. It was all for one with R.E.M., and having one of them leave with the band going on just didn't jive for me. Also since I stopped listening, a genre called 'jangle pop' has been coined to describe them. Fickle are the hands of time and sand through the hourglass of pop! Whatever! The release of this, R.E.M.'s first ever live album, is cause to pay attention again. And good thing I did too, because if there's one thing that R.E.M. still are, it's an amazingly great live band.

I can't help but notice that there are a lot of people onstage with R.E.M. who aren't in R.E.M. The addition of Seattle multi-instrumentalist Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin (formally of Nine Inch Nails and KMFDM) has rounded out the band's sound and allowed for added depth to parts that could previously not be reproduced live. However, this raft of people serves to prove Michael Stipe an even more magnetic presence than previously, and pushes Mike Mills and Peter Buck further into the background – even when the former is on the mic for a track of his own, you still itch for Stipe to be back in the spotlight (heh heh.)

Let us be honest here, even in a show down with Bono, Prince, Justin Timberlake, and Kurt Cobain in a cast featuring any other dead person you could mention, Michael Stipe will out-charisma all of them. Really. Marvel at his angular, straight-backed dance moves! The power of his vocals as he interprets songs he has sung literally 1000s of times with all the urgency of his life depending on it. Even wearing that crazy batmask make-up makes him appear dark and unknowable, and not retarded.

Recorded live in Dublin's Point Depot Theatre, this show reaches all the way back to Murmur and up to Around the Sun. When Peter Bucks fingers the opening mandolin notes to 'Losing My Religion', the reaction of the crowd is to go instantaneously nuts – this track, 15 years after its release, is a towering testament to song writing and is performed here to note perfection. 'Drive' and 'Everybody Hurts' from 1992's masterwork Automatic For The People avoid nostalgia will ironclad deliveries.

Shot with typical reverence and steering clear of live music video clichés, R.E.M. Live is a pleasure to watch, even for losers like me who thought they didn't have it in them anymore. Forgive me, Michael Stipe, for I have sinned.

[Originally published in the Brag]