At the Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy concert in Brooklyn, the singer came on stage and asked to sing along to a certain song.
Hollywood star Michael Shannon and singer Jason Narducy are among the biggest REM fans on the planet. But instead of sulking at home and playing all of the band’s records over and over again because they have officially been retired from rock since 2011, they go on tour with REM’s songs themselves.
Stipe, Mills, Berry and Buck are happy, they secretly joined the band at a gig in their hometown of Athens in 2024. That was a complete success. Stipe would obviously like to experience this again.
After two concerts last year in which the singer belted out “Pretty Persuasion” (from the album RECKONING) together with Shannon and Narducy, this time material from LIFES RICH PAGEANT was heard at a gig by the tribute duo in Brooklyn.
“These Days” and “The Great Beyond” with Michael Stipe
The record from 1986 is currently being extensively celebrated by the two noble fans on tour to celebrate its 40th anniversary. On Saturday at Brooklyn Steel, Stipe (with a full beard, red cap and glasses) chose “These Days.” He also added the long-unheard “The Great Beyond” from the soundtrack to the Milos Forman film “Man On The Moon” to the set.
Michael Stipe has not sung both pieces live since 2008. That year was the last time REM was seen on tour. At that time they played the songs from their current record ACCELERATE. COLLAPSE INTO NOW followed in 2011. However, instead of giving more concerts, the group decided to leave the guitars in the shed.
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Of course, the question of a reunion is now immediately available again. However, if you put it to Stipe and Co., there has been a consistent rejection for years. Guitarist Peter Buck said just a few years ago that it would never be as good as it once was. 2011 was exactly the right moment to stop. Because: “At that point there wasn’t really anything we could agree on, i.e. what kind of music we wanted to record and whether we wanted to go on tour. We didn’t even know where we should go out to eat together. At least that has since changed again.”
By the way, just a few days ago, Berry and Buck showed that it’s not just Michael Stipe who is reminiscing about old times when they visited Shannon and Narducy at their gig at the 40 Watt Club in Athens.
Narducy told “Spin” a few more details about the exceptional concert with Stipe:
“Michael said he would come, and for a long time he just hinted that he would be there as an audience member. Then the day before he said, ‘I really want to play ‘These Days.’ This is the second song on the album – it would be crazy to get him on stage so early and then he would be gone for the next two hours. So Michael Shannon had the idea: ‘Why don’t we just play him twice?’ He came to the sound check, which was also different than last year. We rehearsed the song and it felt great. He came to me, pointed to the set list and asked, ‘Are you playing ‘The Great Beyond’ straight after ‘These Days’? Maybe I’ll sing along too.’ I just said, ‘We’d love to do it that way.’ Then he beckoned Michael Shannon over, we discussed it briefly and then it was a done deal. That was pretty fun.”
Since REM doesn’t seem to have anything else going on and Michael Stipe probably won’t be releasing his solo record, which was announced a long time ago, into the world, we’re at least looking forward to the reissue of REVEAL from 2001, which is hopefully coming up this year. Since 2008, the band has been releasing each of their albums to coincide with their 25th anniversary.
