even when it's fake it's real, the michael shannon edition
On a last minute invite from a friend, last night I saw Michael Shannon channel Michael Stipe in a wild mix of nostalgia, fan service, performance art…and true love. Shannon, with guitarist Jason Narducy and a killer backing band (“holy shit, that’s John Stirratt from Wilco!”) has been covering REM and going on tour with it for the past few years. Last night they played Life’s Rich Pageant from start to finish in front of a sold out crowd of Gen Xers at The Fillmore; many of us knew every single lyric from every single song.
This project is wild. I’ve never wanted an 80 minute Netflix documentary more in my life, because I have so many questions. How did this start? How did Shannon and Narducy meet? When did Shannon realize he could pull this off? How did they rope in Stirratt? How did Michael Stipe feel about this when he first heard about it? What are fans getting out of this when they come to shows? And what was it like in the room last year when this happened?