R.E.M. returned to Hyde Park on Saturday for the final show of their marathon world tour. It was not the triumphal occasion it might have been. The concert, which had been postponed by a week because of the London bomb attacks, followed the group’s appearance on the same stage as part of the Live 8 concert. The euphoria of setting the world to rights so abruptly dissipated by subsequent events, it was back to business as usual as the band piled into the opening number: “It’s been a bad day/please don’t take a picture,” Michael Stipe sang on a blissful summer evening.

His eyes buried in the band of blue warpaint that has been his public image in recent months, Stipe resembled a particularly camp Batman villain as he pranced and posed. The bass player, Mike Mills, and guitarist Peter Buck put in workmanlike performances while various session players, including the drummer Bill Rieflin, discreetly fleshed out the sound as they forged on with a muscular What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? and a rousing version of The One I Love.

The tall screens either side of the stage gave an unusually artistic representation of the show, involving complicated vision mixing which worked particularly well during The Outsiders, when Stipe’s blackened eyes were repeatedly frozen to eerie effect. But although R.E.M. have clearly got the experience to cope with these enormous venues, they are not an instinctively large-scale theatrical group and compared with recent shows by U2 and the Rolling Stones this was a tame presentation.

The band was joined by Patti Smith for a performance of E-Bow the Letter. As usual in these situations, Smith contributed more to the sense of occasion than to the song. Clasping Stipe’s hand like a lifeline, she occasionally mumbled while Stipe was left to navigate the rich, Dylanesque wordplay.

The vague pieties of the anti-war song Final Straw gave way to the best moment of the set when they played Orange Crush. The stage was bathed in orange light, prompting the audience to raise a sea of mobile phone cameras. Then the band were on to the home straight with favourites such as Losing My Religion and Nightswimming. They shook off the chains of nostalgia and performed a new song, I’m Gonna DJ, before wrapping up a professional show with Man on the Moon.