R.E.M. just said today that they’d never reunite. In a segment on CBS This Morning ahead of their induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame, they insisted that a reunion would not be a good idea because “it’d never be as good.” I guess they meant a proper reunion involving touring and/or recording because what else do you call what they did tonight? At the Hall Of Fame’s induction ceremony in New York, all four members performed together for the first time since their Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2007. (So many Halls Of Fame for these guys.) They were inducted by Jason Isbell, who covered their classic 1987 tongue-twister “It’s The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” “Nobody sounds like R.E.M., even now, and it ain’t for lack of trying,” Isbell said in his speech. “R.E.M. moved like a single instrument and the songs they created served a real purpose for kids like me growing up in a small Southern town.”
Watch footage of the band playing a stripped-down “Losing My Religion” and their speech, and Isbell’s speech and performance, below.
@billboard @R.E.M. reunite on stage for the first time in 15 years for “Losing My Religion” at the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala in NYC. 🎤 #rem #nostalgia #rockband #concert #livemusic #losingmyreligion #reunion ♬ original sound – billboard
Drummer Bill Berry left R.E.M. in 1997 after suffering a brain aneurysm in 1995. The last time the band performed publicly as a trio was in 2009. In 2016, the three remaining members performed at their manager Bertis Downs’s 60th birthday party. This year the original foursome appeared onstage together for the first time since 2007 at the Athens stop of Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s Murmur tribute tour.
