Talk about the passion ... Michael Stipe on stage at Glastonbury in 1999. Photograph: Toby Melville/PA
There has to come a time when you get sick of going on about shiny happy people, the man on the moon and telling people that it's the end of the world as we know it (but you feel fine). REM must have played those old hits so many times over the decades that they feel no need to rehearse them.
The same doesn't go for new material, but Stipe and co have long gone past the stage where they need to develop fresh songs in isolation. Instead, over five nights this week they are road testing the songs from their as-yet-untitled 15th studio album at Dublin's Olympia Theatre, which they're not due to start recording until later this year with producer-of-the-moment Jacknife Lee. Each night, Stipe is reading the lyrics to 10 works-in-progress from his laptop, the breaking-in of this new, reportedly quite rocky, material mixed with a smattering of old material, such as Second Guessing and Letter Never Sent. To outline that the audience are actually watching a live rehearsal rather than a concert, there are helpful flashing signs proclaiming: "This is not a show".
As their fan site points out, road testing new albums is nothing new in REM's world - every album from their second, Reckoning, to 1996's New Adventures in Hi-Fi went through the same live baptism of fire before being finalised in the studio, and they gauged the reaction from fans accordingly, classic songs such as Undertow and Low given "a distinctive flavour born of their live heritage".
Anyone who has witnessed Babyshambles, even on a good night, would not be surprised if they learned it was the first time Pete Doherty and co had ever attempted to play the songs (though it isn't the case), while Mark E Smith hasn't baulked in the past from introducing a replacement guitarist to the Fall, despite them having had zero practice with the fractious band.
Despite tickets reportedly going for four grand each on the internet, last night's gig was far from the usual stadium shenanigan. Instead, it involved plenty of friendly banter between Stipe and the audience, which - of course - included Bono and the Edge, as well as the entire staff from REM's home base in Athens, Georgia.
There is a question of scruples, though. In much the same way that major theatre productions open with an ever-increasing amount of "preview" nights to get the production shipshape in front of a test audience before the critics are allowed in, is it morally right that people pay through the nose to see a show that's half-baked? The traditional way of doing things on the rock scene is to stage a series of "secret" gigs in obscure venues, for which punters in the know pay only a nominal entry fee, if at all. Though it is unlikely REM fans would go home disappointed having had a fairly exclusive peek into the inner workings of one of the world's biggest acts (and apparently there are no other scheduled REM dates this year), does charging people gig prices to watch your rehearsal set an unhealthy precedent?
