Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy Will Perform R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction on Expanded 2025 Tour

After a series of sold-out shows that garnered media plaudits and grateful attention from longtime fans, in which the duo performed R.E.M.’s iconic debut album Murmur in its entirety, Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy And Friends are lining up an encore slate of R.E.M. tributes for 2025. The newly announced, expanded tour will be in celebration of R.E.M.’s 1985 third album Fables of the Reconstruction, which will be celebrating its 40th anniversary next year. Perhaps that’s why they chose it and skipped over 1984’s R.E.M. sophomore release Reckoning.

This will be a more serious national tour than the one for Murmur, though that previous outing did yield a seismic event for the band’s longtime fandom, given that it saw the four original members of R.E.M. come together at the Athens, Georgia shows for the first time in 17 years. The Fables of the Reconstruction tour will take Shannon and Narducy back to those same stomping grounds, playing two nights at Athens’ 40 Watt Club, where you better believe fans will be hoping for another “impromptu” reunion. There’s no telling if they’ll be so lucky this time around. Fans around the country will also be able to catch the tribute, though, with 19 total performances on the list announced today, which you can find below. It’s scheduled to kick off on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Pioneertown, California. The Oscar-nominated Shannon and Narducy (Bob Mould Band, Superchunk, Sunny Day Real Estate) will be backed by Jon Wurster (drums), John Stirratt (bass), Dag Juhlin (guitar) and Vijay Tellis-Nayak (keys), playing Fables each night in full, in addition to other songs from the R.E.M. library.

Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy had been performing one-off tributes to some of the actor-musician’s favorite albums at various Chicago clubs, before the raucous reception to a night dedicated to Murmur first made Shannon consider taking the show on the road.

“I had never done a tour before,” the actor said in a press statement. “Jason nudged me after the Murmur set in Chicago at Metro. Now it’s all I want to do. I’m happy this one is twice as long. The last one was too short. This music is beyond comprehension and I cherish every chance I get to deliver it, even second generation. R.E.M. means the world to me. And this band led by Jason is stone cold ridiculous. Even if I never walked onstage, you would get a hell of a show.”