R.E.M. surprises Songwriters Hall Of Fame crowd with first on-stage reunion in 17 years

It’s been 17 years since all four founding members of R.E.M.—Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills—played together in public, a rarity ever since drummer Berry departed the group in 1997. (Stipe, Buck, and Mills continued on as a trio for the next 14 years, releasing a song with Berry for charity once in the mid-2000s; they most recently played together with a set at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, when they were inducted together in 2007.) R.E.M. broke that streak tonight, though, with the group reuniting as a quartet to celebrate their induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame, taking the stage at a hotel in New York this evening.

Not surprisingly, the band played “Losing My Religion”—because, if you’re a band facing a crowd of people losing their minds because R.E.M. surprised them with a reunion, how could you not—albeit a quiet, acoustic version of the 1991 classic, with Buck illustrating that he still has firm command of the song’s classic mandolin riff, and Stipe in excellent voice. It’s the sort of thing probably guaranteed to generate “you had to have been there” moments—although in the world of endless social media, of course, it’s easier and easier to fake it by trawling Instagram to get basically a full cut of the performance.

Earlier this week, the band gave an interview together ahead of the induction, in which, among other things, they joked that the only thing that would get them to reunite would be “a comet,” with Buck noting that “It’d never be as good.” Which just proves what we’ve always said: The members of R.E.M. are liars. (Still play a damn fine tune, though.)