Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends, Life’s Rich Pageant, March 6th, 2026 at Royale in Boston

Friday night, the tour of Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of R.E.M.’s “Life’s Rich Pageant” came through Boston with a killer show at Royale on Tremont.

As they did with “Fables of the Reconstruction” at the same venue, they played the album in sequence. Yes, this included Shannon (who played General Zod in Man of Steel) singing “I Am Superman”:

Last song on side B: “I Am Superman” – an unlisted track on the original

After the playing the full album, which sounded great but short, they launched into an extended set of songs from throughout the catalog – forward to Up and New Adventures in Hi-Fi, and back to Chronic Town.

Boxcars, which for some reason audience members kept asking for even after it was played early in the set.

After a pretty lengthy set, they also came back for an encore.

Shannon with Vijay Tellis-Nayak do “Nightswimming” to open the encore“Camera” from the encore set

This time the “Friends” included Dag Juhlin (Poi Dog Pondering, Sunshine Boys, Exo ’76) , John Stirratt (Wilco, The Autumn Defense), Vijay Tellis-Nayak (composer, arranger, in Kick The Cat), and Jon Wurster (Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, Bob Mould). What a great band! I think they are spot-on with all the music from Chronic Town through Document (coming next year), though there were some stumbles in a few of the more recent songs deeper in the set – maybe the first time they’ve played them.

Look forward to seeing the Document tour.

#40thAnniversary #Boston #Concert #DagJuhlin #JasonNarducy #JohnStirratt #JonWurster #LifeSRichPageant #Live #MichaelShannon #REM #TheRoyale #Tribute #VijayTellisNayak

Michael Shannon, Jason Narducy and Friends play R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction at the Royale Boston, March 7th, 2025

I missed the last Shannon-Narducy recreate R.E.M. tour, when they came through doing Murmur at the Sinclair. This time I was not going to miss out.

The band includes Jon Wurster (who’s played with Bob Mould, Superchunk, and The Mountain Goats) on drums, John Stirratt (of Uncle Tupelo and Wilco) on bass, Dag Juhlin (Poi Dog Pondering) on guitar, and Vijay Tellis-Nayak in addition to Shannon’s vocals and Narducy’s guitar work. (Narducy has also played in Bob Mould’s band and with Superchunk, as well as Verbow).

Comedian Dave Hill opened, with some musical numbers of his own as well as pickup lines tailored to a Boston Audience.

Honestly they undersell the whole tour – while they are careful to note it isn’t a tribute band, they do recreate what I imagine it was like to see R.E.M. in a smaller venue earlier in their career. (Maybe it should be called Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy play the R.E.M. catalogue). By the time I saw R.E.M. on the Work tour in 1987, they were big enough to play the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul – a 5000 seat arena.

We got there early enough to get seats in the balcony – the view’s a bit obstructed when you’re sitting, but standing it’s a great view.

A few clips:

“Maps and Legends” “Driver 8”“Can’t Get There From Here”

After playing Fables through, they went into what was actually the longer set of other songs from across the R.E.M. catalogue, including covers they played around the time, like this one (one of several they played from Dead Letter Office):

“Femme Fatale” (Velvet Underground cover)

They also went back and forward in the R.E.M. catalog, to “Daysleeper” from Up and back to Chronic Town (Wolves, Gardening at Night). Some of my favorite Reckoning tracks made it too.

“7 Chinese Bros”

They called this one a deep cut for the true followers:

“Bandwagon”

If you get a chance to catch the show – on this tour or hopefully on tours to follow for other R.E.M. album anniversaries – don’t miss it

#BostonMA #DagJuhlin #DaveHill #FablesOfTheReconstruction #JasonNarducy #JohnStirratt #JonWurster #LiveMusic #MichaelShannon #REM_ #TheRoyale #VijayTellisNayak