Hands crossed on his chest in a stoic cap and shades, or summoning down a chorus with arms stretched wide, he’s suitably enigmatic. The voice is a perfect Georgian tremble, albeit brushed here and there with a touch of Eddie Vedder. As he tells the tale of a man building a wall down the middle of his house to live in different sides as the mood takes him, there’s a fitting hint of calm derangement.
“a fitting hint of calm derangement”
Hands crossed on his chest in a stoic cap and shades, or summoning down a chorus with arms stretched wide, he’s suitably enigmatic. The voice is a perfect Georgian tremble, albeit brushed here and there with a touch of Eddie Vedder. As he tells the tale of a man building a wall down the middle of his house to live in different sides as the mood takes him, there’s a fitting hint of calm derangement.
If Michael Shannon, Hollywood star of Knives Out and Nocturnal Animals among many other notable movies, is auditioning for the starring role in a Michael Stipe biopic, he’s a shoo-in.
He has, though, gone seriously method. Having previously played full-album cover shows of records by Lou Reed, The Modern Lovers, Neil Young and The Smiths in Chicago over the course of a decade, in 2023 Shannon and a backing band put together by sometime Bob Mould and Robert Pollard bassist Jason Narducy began touring a 40th anniversary tribute show to R.E.M.’s Murmur across the States.
Click here to read our interview with Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and R.E.M.
“a committed and powerful impressionist”
Skipping Reckoning’s birthday, they mark four decades of Fables Of The Reconstruction with a full run through, faithful to its southern gothic murk and building an archivist’s world around the record in a sprawling second set: The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”, an R.E.M. live favourite from the era, given a gentle Athens twist; Wire’s “Strange” delivered in the post-punk country rock form it would take on Document; a take on “Crazy” by R.E.M.’s hometown neighbours Pylon. At their Athens stop in February, in the ultimate stamp of authenticity, R.E.M. themselves hopped up to play the closing “Pretty Persuasion” with Shannon’s band.
Close your eyes during their impressively dense and dank version of Fables… tonight – an album recorded “a stone’s throw for this very building” Shannon claims, although you’d need quite an overarm to hit Wood Green’s Livingston Studios from here, three miles away – and you’re never going to think Stipe is in the room.
Shannon is certainly a committed and powerful impressionist. These tales of rural eccentrics, railroaders and misunderstood ministers find flesh in his hands, and he musters some convincingly Stipean wails on “Maps And Legends”, masters the heavenly drift of “Wendell Gee” and carries the Americana pop momentum of “Driver 8” and “Can’t Get There From Here” with enthusiastic ease.
This is a deep-diving tribute from the heart of a super-stan. “This is for the diehard afficionados,” Shannon says ahead of a coast through B-side “Bandwagon”, and the second set only gets marginally more arena-friendly from there.
“there’s genuine thankfulness at work”
The mid-‘80s era is the bedrock – “how about some Chronic Town?” Shannon asks before a funk-punk “1,000,000” and an effervescent “Gardening At Night” – and the big ‘90s hits are passed over for sublime deep cuts from New Adventures In Hi-Fi (“New Test Leper”), Monster (“Let Me In”) and Up (“Daysleeper”). “Romance”, from the 1987 movie Made In Heaven, gets a fiery pop outing despite Shannon having been told by a member of R.E.M. themselves that even they couldn’t remember it.
When populism sporadically strikes, it’s with good reason. “World Leader Pretend”, by turns melodic and sinister, is indulged because “it feels particularly relevant right now”. A punchy “Radio Free Europe” is repurposed as a protest against the dismantling of the titular organisation and a wonderful, chant-along “Cuyahoga” is framed as a preview of a possible future Life’s Rich Pageant tour.
As Shannon and Narducy lead the encore with a hushed and tender acoustic “So. Central Rain”, laced with lines from Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain”, there’s genuine thankfulness at work.
And artful reconstruction too.
Setlist for Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends, The Garage, London, August 22, 2025:
Feeling Gravity’s Pull
Maps And Legends
Driver 8
Life And How To Live It
Old Man Kensey
Can’t Get There From Here
Green Grow The Rushes
Kahoutek
Auctioneer (Another Engine)
Good Advices
Wendell Gee
Femme Fatale
Romance
Strange
New Test Leper
Bandwagon
1,000,000
Gardening At Night
World Leader Pretend
Moral Kiosk
Daysleeper
Sitting Still
Cuyahoga
So. Central Rain
CrazyRadio Free Europe
Let Me In
Pretty Persuasion
