Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy at the Garage
The Garage, 22 August 2025
Officially titled "Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy sing R.E.M.'s Fables Of The Reconstruction", this was not only a fantastic tribute to the boys from Athens, Georgia but a hugely fun night in its own right with Hollywood actor Michael Shannon brilliantly channeling Michael Stipe with a pretty incredible backing band to boot.
If you had asked me even a few years back if I would be buying a ticket to see actor Michael Shannon fronting what is essentially a tribute band to R.E.M. I would have chuckled, because not only was the idea crazy, but Michael Shannon being able to sing like Michael Stipe?! I would never have been able to picture it, even though I was a fan of Shannon's acting (particularly as the psychopathic Nelson Van Alden in Boardwalk Empire and in, the little more obscure comedy about the aftermath of Gram Parsons' death, Grand Theft Parsons) I didn't know he could sing. Then of course he played George Jones in the mini-series George & Tammy and skillfully tackled Jones' incredible croon. I, of course, love Jones, I grew up with a dad who thought George Jones was the greatest singer who ever lived, so the fact Shannon did not disappoint me in that role (although, of course, he wasn't quite as great as the Possum), said volumes. After that, it didn't seem so ridiculous the idea of seeing him fronting a band.
It turns out that Shannon has been a big music fan all his life and the turning point was meeting Jason Naducy, the guitarist who has played with the likes of Bob Mould and Superchunk, back in 2014 and bonding over their shared musical loves. It led to them performing together whole albums they loved, like Neil Young's Zuma (I would have loved to have seen that!) and The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead (that one not so much). Eventually they started covering R.E.M. and it was such a success they got offers to tour and they went out on the road in the States performing all of the band's debut album, Murmur. Word of mouth even led to appearances from actual members of R.E.M. leading to an actual reunion of all the four members at a show in Asheville for the first time since they broke up (or went on hiatus), which is pretty incredible.
Tonight there were no appearances from R.E.M. members sadly but this was still a rip-roaring show that I imagine was close to what it would have been like to have seen R.E.M. in the old days when they were still playing clubs. I have of course seen R.E.M live too, way back in 1999 at Earls Court (I should have seen them in 1995 too for the Monster tour as I had a ticket to see them at Wembley Arena but it was cancelled after Bill Berry's brain aneurysm) and it was a fantastic show (the first time I had ever seen Wilco too), but Earls Court was a huge place and I think they only played a couple of tunes from their first few albums. Tonight was firmly about celebrating early R.E.M., concentrating on the first few albums and even some real deep cuts.
The show started promptly at 8.30pm, with no support, which was nice (especially given that so much of the audience were of a similar vintage to R.E.M. themselves) with the five piece band (which, along with Narducy on guitar, also includes such luminaries as Ted Leo on bass, Jon Wurster on drums, Vijay Tellis-Nayak on keyboards and Dag Juhlin on guitar) all taking their places before Shannon made his entrance, looking tall and menacing wearing a buttoned-up raincoat, sunglasses and a baseball cap, looking like he was incognito for the night. They immediately launched into Feeling Gravitys Pull, the first song on Fables Of The Reconstruction,which is celebrating its 40th birthday this year, and with few words played the whole album through.
I quickly forgot that Shannon was a movie star, as he seemed to embody the spirit of Michael Stipe (I guess this is why he's also such a talented actor), gripping the microphone and pouring his heart and soul into the vocals, and sounding uncannily like the R.E.M. frontman, while Narducy looked on smiling as he played his guitar.
He at first seemed cool and enigmatic, but as the show progresses he does eventually take the shades off and the raincoat (he can't decide on the cap, as that comes off and goes back on again at regular intervals) and even chats a little more. I had wondered if taking a few photos would annoy him, but he seemed completely engrossed in the music and his role of rock singer that the positive reactions from the audience thankfully seemed to feed his energy, as he swung the microphone stand around, using it to point out into the dedicated crowd of R.E.M. fanatics who were absolutely digging what he was doing.
Before the song Life And How To Live It, he tells us a story, that almost feels like a poetry reading, of a man who divided his house into two halves by a wall, and would go back and forth living in each half. When he died they discovered a closet filled with many copies of a book he had written but never published, and it was called "Life And How To Live It", This is of course the real life story that inspired Stipe's lyrics but there was something riveting and eerie hearing Shannon tell the tale, before the band launched into the jangling guitar and driving beat of the song. It sounded great.
After Old Man Kensey, Shannon told us "now we are halfway through" and indeed they had reached side two of Fables, it reminded me of the Dinosaur Jr show I had also seen at the Garage where they played all of Where You Been and he kept commenting of how far we were into the record, "only three more songs to go!" etc. Not that Shannon and co felt like they were rushing it, you could tell they were reveling in playing a beloved album and getting such a joyful reaction from plenty of diehard fellow fans. The show was also surprisingly loud and punky at times too (Auctioneer was particularly dark and spiky sounding), and, while I can't say for sure because I'm not big on bootlegs, but this is exactly what I imagine it would have been like seeing the actual band play smaller club shows back in their early days.
Ending, of course, with the far more gentle Wendell Gee, Shanno told us that R.E.M. often used to cover one of their favourite bands, The Velvet Underground, on tour, and they were going to do the same tonight, and pretty much gave us R.E.M.'s version of the classic song Femme Fatale (which indeed R.E.M. even recorded their own version of as well as performing it live), before suddenly all walking off stage.
Thankfully they very quickly returned, Shannon now without his sunglasses and detective overcoat, wearing just a loose white t-shirt and what looked like pyjama bottoms (he definitely looked like he could go straight to bed in this outfit anyway), and they played a song I wasn't familar with, Romance, which Shannon admitted that somone in R.E.M. themselves told him they couldn't remember, but actually sounded vibrant and upbeat and fun (hopefully they remember it now!).
This was indeed the part of the show where they explored other areas of R.E.M.'s impressive back catalogue but it was as eclectic as the band who inspired it all, with Shannon & Narducy foregoing all the obvious hits and going for deeper cuts (evidenced by the fact that they played not one but two tracks from the Chronic Town EP).
Then Shannon announced they were going to do a song from Green, "and no it's not Stand" he told us before playing World Leader Pretend, because "it feels particularly relevant right now." And indeed it did sound more sinister and meaningful than ever. He also acknowledged that because they didn't bring their tour celebrating R.E.M.'s debut Murmur on these shores, they would give us "a smidgen" from it tonight, playing Moral Kiosk and later, surely one of the highlights of the night, Radio Free Europe, in the encore.
The emphasis was definitely on early R.E.M. (there were songs from Reckoning and Life's Rich Pageant too, which Shannon said they are thinking of taking on the road next year for its 40th anniversary), but they also surprised me by venturing into the 90s, with New Test Leper from New Adventures In Hi-Fi (this sounded particularly great, I must say, with Narducy playing acoustic guitar) and even more interestingly, something from the 1998 album Up, the bittersweet but lovely Daysleeper, which of course took me back to when I saw R.E.M. at Earls Court in 1999, as they played this song that night.
One of the best moments of the night came at the start of the encore when only Shannon and Narducy returned and tried out a new cover of the Reckoning track, So. Central Rain, perhaps one of the most recognisable songs tonight (for the R.E.M. novice that is) and with Narducy on acoustic guitar and Shannon gripping his microphone tight, it was one of the most sweet and tender moments of the concert, maybe because it took us back to where all this began: two friends singing od songs they love together.
Another cool moment in the encore was hearing them play Let Me In from Monster. Obviously the song is both raw, emotional and rousing (it's apparently about the death of Kurt Cobain), but there was something even more ragged and moving about it, maybe because the band only learned how to play it for the first time in Glasgow a few nights ago. Apparently Shannon had been trying to get into the venue for about 20 minutes with no luck thanks to a disbelieving security guard, but luckily a fan came along and vouched that this was indeed the headliner just trying to get into his own gig! The fan asked if they could play Let Me In and even though they had never played it before, they quickly learned it before the show and surprised the lucky fan, who had been told it was unlikely it would show up in the setlist.
Shannon seems to experience this kind of thing regularly, as he tells another story tonight that the band recently were drinking in a bar opposite the venue they had just played, called something like "Nice & Sleazy" (I may well be mis-remembering that awful title) and Shannon went to join them only to be told by the bouncer that "I can tell by the way you're walking that you've already had a few too many tonight" and wouldn't let him in (yet again!), despite the fact that not only was he not drunk, he actually never drinks! So while the band were out enjoying themselves, Shannon had to go back and spend the night in his hotel room at the Ramada Inn, although he admits he may have ended up with the better deal, as he was with his "beautiful girlfriend". The song obviously has taken on a new meaning in light of these incidents!
They ended the show on the fast and poppy Pretty Persuasion, which had many singing along and it was great to see Narducy, jaming away with Ted Leo and Dag Juhlin, clearly having an absolute ball playing together, while Shannon, sweating away in his loose pyjama-like outfit (I think the baseball cap had returned at this point), danced around and let loose himself, for a rather joyous ending to the night.
It's crazy just how much fun the whole show was and the amount of energy and, I think, pure love for the material they were playing, was so contagious. I mean, I have definitely seen bands play songs they have actually written but so much less enthusiasm, and while this was essentially a cover band or even a kind of tribute act, the callibre of the musicians on stage, all of whom could be out touring in their own projects right now, really brought it to another level altogether.
I just know I left with a big smile on my face. They played another show the night after, which I'm sure was fantastic too, but I totally felt satisfied seeing them just the once (this was their first sold out show of the tour afterall!) I'm not particularly swayed by the idea of seeing a movie star in the flesh (I saw plenty of them and interviewed some when I worked in publishing and after a while it becomes less surreal and just plain ordinary), but there is something about Michael Shannon that is slightly more intriguing and to be able to gather together such an interesting and talented bunch of musicians to celebrate one of their favourite bands just seemed to be something worth witnessing, and I'm happy to report, it really was.
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