Live drums, guitar and bass had been added to the track for the 2000 compilation, and by the time it was recorded in the church sessions, "When It Was Real" was in earnest a rock song.

Most sequences were translated into parts played by the five members, though not all. One notable remainder of the version from 1998 was the ataxic synthesizer bass line introducing the song — inspired by Nitzer Ebb's album That Total Age, and accomplished by setting a short recording of a bassoon to an impossible melody before torturing the result with overdriving and phase sweeps.