This past Tuesday, I drove two-and-a-half hours to see a tribute band.
It wasn’t Hells Belles (female AC/DC tribute band).
It wasn’t Pink Talking Fish (tribute to Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, and Phish)
It wasn’t the Hot Red Chili Peppers (tribute to the Red Hot Chili Peppers).
It wasn’t Mini KISS (KISS tribute band of little people).
It was less a tribute band, and more of a supergroup — with an Oscar-nominated actor — paying tribute to R.E.M.
Jason Narducy (touring bassist for Superchunk and Bob Mould’s band, also releases solo music as Split Single) first teamed up with Michael Shannon [Oscar nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Revolutionary Road (2008) and Nocturnal Animals (2016)] to play R.E.M. songs back in 2023.
The Shannon-Narducy project started as a one-off in a July 2023 show at Chicago’s Metro honoring Murmur’s 40th anniversary, built on a decade-long tradition of the two middle-aged men learning and performing a complete album—Bob Dylan, The Smiths, Modern Lovers—as a single event, never repeated. The Metro show sold 925 tickets on 30 days’ notice, in summer, when every street festival in Chicago is competing for attention.
from this article in BKMag
Clearly there was an audience for this show. So they took it on the road.
None of this [touring] was planned in any way, shape, or form,” Narducy says. “I can tell you that.” But promoters around the country started emailing. The first tour was nine shows. Narducy financed it on two credit cards. “My credit score dropped 250 points,” he says, chuckling.
(same source as above)
This year, “Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy & Friends” was playing the R.E.M. album Lifes Rich Pageant from front to back, along with several other R.E.M. tunes. And the rest of the band members are names any indie rocker would recognize:
John Stirratt (Wilco) on bass. Jon Wurster (Mountain Goats and Bob Mould, formerly of Superchunk) on drums. Dag Juhlin (The Slugs, Poi Dog Pondering) and Vijay Tellis-Nayak (“One of Chicago’s most sought-after musicians — pianist, keyboardist, composer, arranger, engineer, and producer”) on keyboards.
The tour was selling out 1,000+ seat venues. I went to the final show of the tour, at the 288-capacity Bluebird Nightclub in Bloomington, Indiana. (Lifes Rich Pageant was recorded in that town 40 years ago.)
If you think Michael Shannon is just dabbling in music, think again. He’s put in the work to do justice to Michael Stipe’s vocal stylings.
I would’ve loved the show even if it were just the stellar band doing 23 R.E.M. songs. But they had a special guest joining them for several tunes: R.E.M. bassist/vocalist Mike Mills.
And he loved it too!
Nostalgia can be a trap. But R.E.M. songs meant a lot to a lot of folks in my age bracket. And a chance to reconnect with those songs — and with one of the guys who created them — was magical. Not just for us, but for Mike Mills too. “The power, and the joy, of an R.E.M. show… keeping the joy of our music alive for us, and for our fans.”
So it wasn’t a tribute band. It was great band, playing tribute to another great band that paved the way for them.
BTW, Jason Narducy is playing a solo “songs and stories” show at my house on May 14. You can get tickets here.
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