Tom Dunne: Watching REM reconnect with their music is magic itself

That was them in the spotlight, that was me in the corner, rediscovering my religion. How did this come to pass?

REM pictured in 2001. The band reunited on stage this week. Picture: Anthony Harvey.

“What band would you most like to see reform?” is a dinner party conversation starter. It’s supposed to inspire light-hearted banter. But not in our house. “REM” is the immediate answer and then we switch on the football and ask guests to leave. 

In 2011, I felt REM were right to break up. I felt it was a 'You have to go away to come back' kind of thing. But there I was at the REM bus stop a decade later in my 'Shiny Happy Person' T-shirt and still there was no sign. “Could they,” I wondered, “actually mean this?” Hence, I watched the CBS This Morning interview through my fingers. Could they? Would they? Might this be our Peter Jackson Get Back moment? Could the breakup, like Let It Be, have been mispresented?