Jason Narducy

In 2025, a Chicago alternative-music fixture teamed up with a Hollywood actor to launch a barnstorming R.E.M. tribute tour. This already-rich pageant will only get richer in 2026...

- JON WIEDERHORN

IT WAS AN unlikely project that stemmed from unusual connections and happy coincidence. And about a decade after its inception, Chicago alternative-music fixture Jason Narducy and Oscar-nominated actor Michael Shannon (Death by Lightning, Boardwalk Empire, The Shape of Water, Revolutionary Road), toured the country as an R.E.M. cover band. Not only did they receive accolades from the band’s most devout fans, they even had the blessings of the guys in Peter Buck’s legendary group.

On February 28, 2025, all four members of R.E.M. took the stage together for the first time in 17 years to join Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends (the official-ish name of the collective) for a performance of “Pretty Persuasion” at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, R.E.M.’s hometown.

“It’s overwhelming to us that the four people in this massive band actually support us,” Narducy says from his home. “For them to take the stage with us was mind-boggling. A week after we did a show in Chicago, Michael Stipe said, ‘Can I sing with you guys in Brooklyn?’ I’m like, are you serious? Of course you can! How many bands got that big, remained friends and would be open to something like this? I can’t think of any.”

Shannon and Narducy first performed together in 2014 when their mutual friend, unconventional alt-country star Robbie Fulks, invited them to join him at one of his legendary weekly residency gigs at the Hideout in Chicago. The group played Lou Reed’s 1982 album, The Blue Mask, in its entirety and had a great time. After Fulks relocated to Los Angeles a couple of years later, Shannon contacted Narducy to see if he was interested in putting together a band and playing more themed shows. They started in 2016 with the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead, and over the next half-decade, Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends staged theme nights to celebrate Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited