Music
Review
Why is everyone joining high-end cover bands? The Mystery of Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy’s REM tour
In Glasgow, the Hollywood star joins a new wave of amped up cover acts with his tribute to REM
The man on stage doesn’t look like Michael Stipe. He doesn’t sound like him either. He is, at least, called Michael, and he has the kind of charisma that commands the entire room. Admittedly, though, it’s more the charisma of a man who might kill you for money than serenade you with songs about herbs.
You know Michael Shannon as the twitchy bad guy from films such as The Shape of Water, but he is currently touring the UK with indie-rocker Jason Narducy and band playing songs from REM’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction album and beyond.
Why? Well, because he wants to. Just don’t mention his day job, as one cheeky heckler at the Glasgow Garage show does. “Forget Boardwalk Empire,” Shannon tells him, or words to that effect. “That’s not what I’m doing tonight.”
What he is doing tonight is part of a new trend for ridiculously high-end – and sometimes plain ridiculous – covers bands. We’ve seen 1980s survivor Rick Astley joining rockers Blossoms to play Smiths songs. Indie stalwarts Field Music moonlighting as the Fire Doors, a Doors covers band. A group of super-talented musicians performing An Evening of Radiohead at cathedrals across the UK. Next month, Glaswegians can enjoy candlelit classical tributes to Green Day and Oasis.
Field Music’s David Brewis has been admirably honest about the band’s left-turn, telling the Guardian it was a way to ward off “catastrophic financial doom”. But the only thing Shannon needs to ward off is Oscar nominations. He doesn’t have to do this, he wants to. It’s what he’s doing tonight.
Actors’ songs are usually terrible, so maybe borrowing classics like ‘Driver 8’, ‘Cuyahoga’ and ‘World Leader Pretend’ is a better idea. Plus, REM retired in 2011, so it’s not as if he’s stepping on their toes. Indeed, all four members have previously joined Shannon and Narducy onstage in America.
You can’t fault the performance, either, which is impassioned and committed, favouring deep cuts such as ‘Moral Kiosk’ over crowd-pleasers like ‘Man on the Moon’. But it’s also odd, like watching a method actor preparing to play the role of Michael Stipe.
In the past, covers bands have leaned towards the lower end of the market – one of the longest-running gatherings is called Glastonbudget – so why the recent upturn in ambition?
Gigs are big business, but in the scramble to see the heavy hitters, some fans get left behind. So there’s a generosity in bringing the music to modest venues without compromising on quality. Or, to put it another way, if Radiohead do tour again, you’re unlikely to see them packing out Glasgow Cathedral for under £30.
There are pitfalls, though. It’s one thing hearing REM playing a less-than-stellar 40-year-old album track – they’re REM for flip’s sake – but quite another for Shannon and co to do it, however well.
Then there’s the issue of reverence. An Evening of Radiohead was spectrally beautiful – and almost note-perfect – but it only really caught fire when the band did something different with the material. Great songs are a dialogue between the personal and the universal, with the works of REM and Radiohead tipping heavily towards the former. So if you’re going to play them, you need to make them your own.
But as Shannon, Narducy and co prove, these songs are also living things. Surely, after all this time, they belong as much to those who love them as those who wrote them? When I asked myself why I went to An Evening of Radiohead or to watch these guys playing REM, the answer was simple: I just wanted to hear the songs. So, you feel, do they.
