R.E.M. just keep reuniting. Thursday night, Feb. 27, the band that has repeatedly insisted they’ll never do a full-fledged reunion, took the stage at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia to perform with Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. cover band.
Near the end of the gig in R.E.M.’s hometown, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, and Bill Berry joined Shannon and Narducy for a performance of the Reckoning track “Pretty Persuasion.” Mike Mills completed the quartet about halfway through the performance when he jumped on stage to start singing alongside his old bandmates.
While “Pretty Persuasion” was the only song Stipe took the stage for, and which all four members of R.E.M. helped perform, Mills, Buck, and Berry were all kept busy at other points of the show, per Setlist.fm. Berry joined Shannon and Narducy for “Wendell Gee”; Mills played several songs including “Strange” and “1,00,000”; and Buck sat-in on “Letter Never Sent” and “Little America.” Both Buck and Mills were on stage for performances of “Second Guessing” and “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville,” as well.
As if that wasn’t enough, Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye was in the audience, so of course he jumped on stage, too, for two Velvet Underground covers. The rendition of “Femme Fatale” featured Kaye, Buck, and Mills, while “There She Goes Again” boasted just Buck and Kaye.
Shannon and Narducy have been touring the country performing 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction in its entirety, along with a selection of other R.E.M. hits and favorites. Last year, the group did the same, but playing Murmur in its entirety. During their stop in Athens last February, Buck, Mills, and Berry all partook in the show, and while Stipe got on stage at the end to thank the crowd, the whole band did not perform a song together.
Nevertheless, the occasion marked the first time R.E.M. had shared a stage in 17 years. A few months later, in June, R.E.M. did perform live for the first time since 2007 at the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
