Older fans who gave this show a pass will probably slap their foreheads when they read that R.E.M.’s Friday set list at Deer Lake Park included the 1982 Chronic Town EP chestnut “Gardening at Night”. Not only that, but the band aired “West of the Fields” from its debut Murmur, along with “Second Guessing” and the last-minute addition of “Time After Time (Annelise)” from Reckoning. Then there was “Disturbance at the Heron House”, a song from 1987’s Document that has long represented something of a peak in R.E.M.’s earliest cycle from underground obscurity to ’80s college-radio champs. In other words, the alt-rock monster’s roots were definitely showing on the kickoff to its first world tour in three years, on the back of a dedicated return to Rockville with the album Accelerate.

The sometimes nervous milling about on-stage signalled these welcome journeys into the past, followed by a palpable sense of relief to anyone close enough to see the expressions on the faces of R.E.M.’s three original members, singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills. Things went nightswimmingly enough that Buck was moved to add “Country Feedback” to the set, telegraphing the others (who included drummer Bill Rieflin and permanent wing-man, guitarist Scott McCaughey) through the song’s climactic, molten solo. Most remarkably, R.E.M. even hauled out “Ignoreland” from Automatic for the People. The intro was watery and uncertain, but the band soon found its feet. Smirking, vocalist Michael Stipe confessed: “That’s the first time we ever played that song.”

Like the admirably simple light show and no-nonsense versions of the classics, Stipe appeared in concentrated form. No face-paint or luxurious skirts on this year’s model, just the familiar bunch of weird tics that make up his basic vocabulary of energetically high-concept dance moves, like the Gay Elvis, the In-Ear Monitor Adjustment, and the Neurolinguistic Programming Seminar. Reminiscent of the days when he seemed crippled by his own nerves, Stipe also kept his back to the audience for a luminous version of “Let Me In”, which saw the other four players huddled around a Mellotron with acoustic guitars.

This kind of song underlines R.E.M.’s strengths, revealing its occasionally MOR inclinations while simultaneously not making you puke (and speaking of which, the band didn’t do “Everybody Hurts”). For “Let Me In”, and almost all the others, Stipe’s vocals were radiant, and the same must be said for the trustiest backup singer in showbiz, Mike Mills. There are parts in “Get Up” that shouldn’t be attempted by anyone over 45, but the sturdy bassman cleared them with ease. Stipe dedicated “Man-Sized Wreath” to Barack Obama, reminding us that R.E.M.’s politics also lean towards the MOR—unlike some of its forgotten ’80s contemporaries—but you don’t fill a Deer Lake Park with this many well-behaved individuals across at least three generations by screaming for revolution. And as Stipe is wont to bellow in the chorus of “Man on the Moon”, this is a band that appears to have survived a big slump, and is still plenty “Coooooool!”

Georgia Straight, May 2008