Or at least, they’re crap now. They were great once, for a short, flickering few years, and then imperceptibly, they lost it and went crap. You can’t quite put your finger on it, the when, the where, the how, but they lost it, and it never came back.

Whatever legends are, they always used to be better.

So  REM can’t be legends. By rights, this bunch of forty-somethings, these lauded heroes, bankrolled forever, should be crap. At this age, there’s no reason to keep going but pure greed, habit, no statement left to make – just a bunch of old men playing songs they wrote a quarter century ago, trading on past glories, nostalgia junkies. There’s no reason for the vast majority of bands at this age to keep going – there’s nothing left to say.

In theory. But tonight, and last night, REM are fantastic. It’s not just the songs, these beautiful, raw slices of emotion carved straight out of our innermost thoughts; its not just the band, with their vibrant, hyperactive demeanour; its not just the staging, the self-aware, mocking backdrop behind which they operate, or the bands inherent ethos; that of a constant striving to defeat hopelessness with a understated wit and intelligence; it’s all these things.

I never used to think that REM were my favourite band; I just thought they were just a fucking good one. But now I realise that they are one of my favourite bands. I couldn’t care a toss who else likes them, or anything. They work for me. And that’s what music’s all about, an internalisation of someone else’s vision; what makes music great is how it touches each of us, as an individual. How it makes us feel no longer lonely in our own skins, how it makes us feel as it’s not just me, or you, who feels like this, its all of us.

Music is the religion that so many of us speak. So much more than work, or money, or Christ, this is what’s important. Music that strips away all the bullshit and heads straight for the emotional gut.

So lets not mess about. Tickets for these gigs are absurdly expensive at £35 a head – at a gross of £147,000 per night, excluding booking fees – and also absurdly hard to find. It’s only due to some leftfield thinking via the internet I managed to find any. So, stripping away the reality of the situation – obscenely high ticket prices, pathetically limited supply – what do we get?

Only the most important band of the past few decades. Sure U2 are bigger (but they’re not as smart or as cool as they think they are), The Rolling Stones are older, The Beatles more revered, but who is as good? Who still makes brilliant, touching, heartfelt records? Who has never disappeared into a mist of obscurity (artistically)? Who has never decided to slack off and spent several years sunning themselves in their mansions? Who stayed as consistently brilliant for so long?

You know the answer. Not because they need the money, but because the thing that used to make them great, is still in them, still makes them great. Because they need this, because they’re driven. Because they’ve got some fabulous shirts.

Because Peter Buck still does scissor kicks when he opens up the powerchords of “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” like some teenager with his first shitty amp and guitar. Because Michael Stipe is the most charming frontman I’ve seen.

Michael Stipe, whose constantly trying to do something new with the medium. Instead of just singing and fronting the band, we see him having conversations from the stage with friends who’ve emigrated to Cambridge, see him telling appalling jokes, deconstructing his stagecraft, talking about The Smiths, and, playing the entire first side of the “Fables” album (recorded in London) on the first night and then selections from “Life’s Rich Paegant” on the second. Nostalgia is a wonderful place to visit.

Because REM play a set so varied each night its like watching a different band, with some 40 songs over the two nights, and only a handful repeated. It’s what makes them vibrant, different, special. Because otherwise it’s like watching a pantomime, where you know what’s coming next every night.

It doesn’t feel like watching a 23 year old band going through the motions. Because it isn’t. With their every record, REM are moving, going somewhere, trying something new, keeping themselves interested. It’s a journey of discovery.

Sure, there’s very few new songs in the set – “Bad Day” was written in 1985, for example, whilst “Animal” is a Monster-style stomp and “The Final Straw” is the kind of fragile protest that REM do so well. But it isn’t about new places, it’s about new contexts.

It’s about placing the first type of REM song, the impenetrable, dense jangly indie of the Eighties, next to the second – the big rock stomp of the Nineties - with their third template, the fragile, gentle beauty of the early Nineties, in such a way as to cover every human emotion. It’s about what’s being a human being is about.

But what is it? A bunch of guys who know that rock is a big, dumb, stupid animal, and love it because of and despite of that fact. A band that see no shame in having a banjo solo in the middle of “Electrolite”, and then making the next song a blink-and-you-miss-it stream of consciousness indie thrash out. A band that look like most of the cast of Apocalypse Now (Kurtz on vocals, Dennis Hopper on guitars, Martin Sheen on drums), and still have that sense of wonder, childlike innocence and discovery that can only contribute to creating great music.

The bit where Peter Buck squints in the spotlight and gazes like a curious child at the crowd. The bit where Michael Stipe swops places with Peter Buck and straps on a guitar in fits of laughter at the end. The bit where Peter Buck sings through a wonky megaphone during the traditionally climatic “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It”.

Genius. Legends. Other complimentary things. REM are one of the few that will outlive all the trends and the bullshit, because they’re not about trends and bullshit. They’re about exploring music, ideas, about trying new things and walking unafraid. They’re looking for answers from the great beyond.

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