Despite ex-Ministry drummer William Reiflen and Ken Stringfellow, formerly of The Posies, making up for the loss of Bill Berry, being in the presence of REM still feels like being able to catch one of those bands live you missed out on growing up, like The Smiths, for example. It’s a real privilege, as you know they won’t be around forever.

It has been ten years since they were around these parts anyway, so it was time for the band to say “arigatou” to Japan for giving them their first number one here, “Imitation of Life”, from their last album, Reveal.

Although the austere setting of the grand old Budokan with school assembly-like lines of chairs seems incongruous to the liberation and joy that REM have come to share, the venue actually suits REM’s ability to get intimate with their more poignant songs and yet still provide the audience with the mass energy of a stadium band.

Bouncing onto the stage dressed in a little black suit and red tie, tossing his cap to reveal a theatrical dark stripe across his face, Michael Stipe literally attacked the opener, “I Took Your Name”, from Monster. Then, instead of forcing material from the band’s latest offering, Around The Sun, down our throats immediately, he warmed us up with the exuberant harmonica-laden “Bad Day”, and then strutting around in his skinny suit, another non-album track, “Animal.”

Reviews of Around The Sun have been mixed, with the feeling that the album dwells for too long on the more sombre side of life, and that while the band have always been able to make the sad sound bittersweet, on their latest offering, they sound almost jaded. But of course, in comparison to the summery optimism of their last album, Reveal, this new work was always going to feel like a dark cloud on the horizon. Post-election, many Americans must have felt that the government did not in any way represent them to the world, and the album carries this sense of disillusionment. Although appearing to address a more personal battle, Stipe introduced this melancholic frame of mind to the Tokyo audience through “The Outsiders”, a song that does however, contain the line “A new day is born.”

Although the oft-heard complaint of the one-concert-a-year people, that bands tend to play too many of their new songs, caught my ear as I left the venue, I felt that REM were able to pull off the delicate balance of playing a Greatest Hits set with showing that they can still produce new material of any worth. They carefully peppered the 22 song set with a mix of old and new. Introducing “7 Chinese Brothers” as, “a song I wrote when I was 20 years old”, Stipe with greens and reds cascading over him, led the audience on a journey that covered the twenty years since, ensuring that not one single person left the show feeling left out.

Stipe seemed particularly to care that his Japanese audience should have a connection to the music of REM. Another highlight from Around The Sun, “Electron Blue”, was described as “about a new drug, made of light…sure to be invented in Japan first.” The well-travelled front man then enlarged on the more direct lyrical reference to Kyoto found in the song “High Speed Train”, a track with searing guitar that reminds me of Eno mentioning Kyoto in the song “Burning Airlines.” He need not have bothered, as even before this Stipe has started working his magic, controlling every emotion felt by the crowd, assuming a messianic pose at the end of “Drive”, and doing that joyful, funny little dance of his during “Electrolite.” First he loses his New Wave tie, and then jacket, as he wraps himself in the chimes and melodies of “Leaving New York”, a song he obviously takes delight in singing, with an infectious excitement that makes the audience feel that much happier to be alive. Building on this momentum, Stipe then produces his loudhailer and adopts pose of art rock superstar for the song “Orange Crush.” With the entire building about to take off, the song ends, and one is left to ask how “Thank you” could ever sound more humble than it does at that moment, coming from the lips of Michel Stipe.

This brought the show to something of a half-way point, as REM then returned to their new album and the underlying theme of rejection within it, of what Stipe referred to as the “current administration.” The pleading tone of “I Wanted To Be Wrong” and protest folk of “Final Straw” giving way however, to the rousing beauty of “The One I Love”, from the band’s 1987 breakthrough album, Document. Stipe does his “arse in the air” dance, and then for “Walk Unafraid”, draws the audience near, and with the theatricality of Peter Gabriel in his Genesis days, sings of a “sad masquerade.” We then get the hits “Imitation Of Life” and “Losing My Religion”, as the band skilfully pace their performance to satisfy the needs of both old and new fans.

At exactly 9PM the show stopped, and the band left the stage, returning for an encore that included the classics “What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” , “Everybody Hurts”, and “The Great Beyond”, then a new song called “I’m Gonna DJ.” As the curtain fell to the strains of “Man In The Moon”, the audience is left in stunned awe of one of the last truly great pop groups.

Rating Out of 10: