Michael Stipe and his fellow Athenians were on punchy, persuasive form in Cardiff on Monday. In between rowdy tracks from the latest R.E.M. album, Accelerate, the shiny-domed Kevin Spacey of alternative rock bantered playfully with the capacity crowd. For some reason he failed to mention this show’s last-minute relocation, because of poor ticket sales, from the nearby Millennium Stadium to a much smaller venue. It seems that even chart-topping supergroups are feeling the musical equivalent of a credit crunch.

After a recent run of critically and commercially lacklustre albums, R.E.M. appear keen to prove their vitality and virility. They gave a muscular performance, with Peter Buck’s ragged power chords cranked up to 11. Their two-hour set began with a barrage of boisterous ear-bashers, including a fiery These Days and a tumescent What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? Switching venues may have been a climbdown, but it lent this show a more visceral punch than it might otherwise have mustered.

Liberal politics are integral to the R.E.M. brand, and Stipe spiced the musical menu with prickly asides about the US regime. “We love our country, we hate our Government,” he declared before firing up Man Sized Wreath, one of the stand-out songs from Accelerate.

As Barack Obama’s campaign poster flashed across the video screens behind him, Stipe also emphasised the renewed relevance of archive tracks written during the Reagan and Bush Sr eras, including Exhuming McCarthy and Ignoreland. I’m Gonna DJ, another tune from the new album, was inspired by the anti-WTO protests in Seattle, but sounded more like Primal Scream in party mode than a political treatise.

At what was my first R.E.M. concert, it was a pleasant surprise to discover how much more palatable Stipe’s whining, nasal voice sounds live than on record. Another revelation, less impressive, was their limited range of styles. Too many tracks sounded like inferior copies of their best-known songs, happy to chug along in the indie-rock centre ground. Variations in mood and texture, such as the acoustic Kurt Cobain tribute Let Me in or the rolling saloon-bar piano ballad Electrolyte, were frustratingly rare.

For all their alternative credentials, R.E.M. are a conservative product, rooted in the country-rock hinterland of mainstream Americana. Which is no great crime, of course. Especially when they deliver a classic-heavy finale, crashing from the barbed anti-romance anthem The One I Love to a pristine Losing My Religion and a rousing Man on the Moon. All singalong epics.

While hardly the most eclectic or cutting-edge performers, R.E.M. at least defied accusations of mid-life stagnation in Cardiff. Even if they can’t be the biggest band in town, it seems they will settle for being the loudest.

Southampton Rosebowl, tonight; Twickenham, Saturday

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