R.E.M. played “Losing My Religion” at the Songwriters Hall of Fame gala in New York on Thursday (June 13), performing live for the first time in more than 15 years.

In a recent interview with CBS This Morning, R.E.M. had said it would take a comet for the Georgia foursome – Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck – to reunite.

Jason Isbell, who inducted R.E.M. into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, said, “The songs they created served a real purpose for kids like me growing up in a small southern town. Somebody out there reluctantly clawing their way into the mainstream who was just as strange and out of place and time as I was. R.E.M. was greater than the sum of its parts. R.E.M. moved like a single instrument.”

Isbell also paid tribute to the band by covering “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

“Writing songs and having a catalog of work that we’re all proud of that is out there for the rest of the world for all time is hands-down the most important aspect of what we did. Second to that is that we managed to do so all those decades and remain friends. And not just friends, dear friends,” Stipe said.

“We are four people that very early on decided that we would own our own masters and we would split our royalties and songwriting credits equally,” he continued. “All for one and one for all.”

The band’s last full concert was in November 2008 in Mexico City.

Source: RTT Music News