Following an ultra-rare, impromptu full-band reunion of R.E.M.‘s original four members last month in Athens, Ga., as part of actor-singer Michael Shannon and guitarist Jason Narducy’s tour performing the band’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction in its entirety, frontman Michael Stipe reappeared again last night (March 8) to sing “Pretty Persuasion” during the last song of a show at New York’s Brooklyn Steel.
On Feb. 27-28 at the 40 Watt Club in R.E.M.’s ancestral Athens, Ga., home, Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry all took the stage at various points for just the second time since 2007. Last night was the first time Stipe made a guest appearance on his own during the Fables tour, which runs through March 15 in Evanston, Il., and will visit the U.K. for a short run in late August.
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When Shannon, Narducy and company toured Murmur in 2024, they fit comfortably into the 650-capacity Music Hall of Williamsburg, but demand for the Fables run led the band to book the three-times-as-large Brooklyn Steel this time around. The audience was clearly filled with middle-aged R.E.M. fans jonesing to hear the band’s catalog played live, a pursuit that seemingly ended with the band’s amicable breakup in 2011.
Asked why he thinks R.E.M. has been so up for repeatedly participating in these shows, Narducy previously told SPIN, “they’re all happy and living well and also comfortable with their legacy and their history. Somehow, they’re okay with us doing this. There was no strategy for us with these shows. It was just Michael Shannon and I doing this thing every 10 years where we play albums that we love, and this particular one just took off. I love how organically it happened. Who could have foreseen that the band and their manager would be so supportive and so kind to us? It’s really lovely.”
The tour is raising funds for Abortion Access Front, whose founder/CCO Lizz Winstead came onstage earlier in the show to thank both the musicians and audience members. “On a personal note, I really need you guys to understand the joy that you are bringing,” she said. “I couldn’t wait to get here, because not only is it so fun, and do we love this music, how much you love it makes it so great. I’m not going to cry!”
Eagle-eyed fans spotted filmmaker Lance Bangs, who worked with R.E.M. on a handful of mid-1990s music videos, shooting parts of the show from offstage, but at the moment, it’s unclear if it was for anything other than archival purposes.
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