Washed up.

That’s what REM looked in 2007. They hadn’t a decent album in about nine years and although whatever bland mush they released still went straight to number 1 with all the depressing inevitability of Robin van Persie picking up an injury while on international duty, it seemed that the group had grown progressively more stale since the departure of multi-instrumentalist Bill Berry.

Something radical was needed. Something that would get the band out of their funk. Something like playing five nights in the Olympia to test out their best material on a live audience.

It’s worth noting that REM never really had much regard for ‘live’ albums in the traditional sense – releasing a recording of a band playing their greatest hits with a bit of crowd noise thrown in seemed to them to be a bit, well, cack. Peter Buck in particular was dead set against it. So when REM Live came out, a record that was the antithesis of their previous stance, the band’s desperation for kudos signalled their own irrelevance. Put simply, the once-great rockers from Athens, Georgia were on their way out.

2008’s Accelerate saved them, and listening to Live at the Olympia it’s easy to see why. Almost all of what would subsequently make up Accelerate’s content was tried out here, and the whole method of choosing which songs to release based on how well live audience’s took to them was a throwback to how REM put together their albums when they first started out. They avoided playing any of their classics, even their most minor hits, and shunned almost all of their recent work. All in all, the thing is pretty cool, and an absolute pleasure to listen to.

Live at the Olympia is really fucking long though. It’s an epic two and a half hours long at least, and while the phrase ‘you can never have too much of a good thing’ is a familiar idiom it’s still somewhat fatiguing. Knackering, to be perfectly honest. Nonetheless, the fact that the 39 songs are so strong is testament to a band that were finally finding their best voice after years of mediocrity. The performances themselves are faultless, it’s impossible to be unimpressed with such a consistent collection.

The quality on show during these working rehearsals really does convey a sense of exactly why REM have lasted so long and why they are so revered as one of the best bands in the world. In fact, it’s so good that it begs the question of how exactly they managed to get into such a rut after 1998’s Up. Certainly, based on this compilation, it’s difficult to envisage these lads doing anything other than making some seriously shit-cool music. Long may it continue.

- Sebastian Clare

Check out this vid of REM performing Man Size Wreath live at the Olympia, one of the performances that is on the album: