R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills made a surprise appearance last night (March 17) with Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy’s R.E.M. tribute project during their Lifes Rich Pageant tour finale at the Bluebird in Bloomington, In., meaning that each of the group’s four original members joined in on the fun throughout the five-week trek. See fan-shot footage below.
Mills’ cameo was even more apropos in light of the fact that R.E.M. recorded Lifes Rich Pageant in the spring of 1986 just outside of Bloomington at John Mellencamp’s Belmont Mall studio. The band then played on campus at IU Auditorium that September, following the July release of the album.
On Tuesday, Mills lent his vocals to “Radio Free Europe,” “Fall on Me,” “Superman” and “Cuyahoga” and returned later in the show to add extra zest to “Star 69” from 1994’s Monster and “The Great Beyond” from the 1999 soundtrack to the Jim Carrey-starring Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon.
Earlier this month, R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe joined Shannon and Narducy in New York for the latter song and “These Days” from Pageant. Both guitarist Peter Buck and drummer Bill Berry were also on hand throughout a two-night run at 40 Watt Club in the band’s former home base of Athens, Ga. That followed historic Feb. 27-28, 2025, shows at the same venue when Stipe, Buck, Berry and Mills all took the stage at various points for just the second time since 2007.
Since early 2024, Shannon, Narducy, Mountain Goats/Bob Mould drummer Jon Wurster, Wilco bassist John Stirratt, guitarist Dag Juhlin and keyboardist Vijay Tellis-Nayak have toured full performances of R.E.M.’s Murmur, Reckoning and Fables of the Reconstruction. The combo will reassemble for a handful of yet-to-be announced summer festival appearances before a short September run in the U.K., Ireland and the midwest in September.
Narducy recently told SPIN that momentum is pointing towards continuing the project with the next R.E.M. album in sequence, 1987’s Document, which was the band’s last on independent label I.R.S. before signing with Warner Bros.
“Every night, Michael takes a poll amongst the band and it has been been a pretty positive reaction,” he said. “We’ve been playing [album track] ‘Fireplace’ as kind of like, if we do, here’s a little glimpse. In North Carolina, Matt Douglas from Mountain Goats played sax on that with us and in Boston, Dana Colley from Morphine did as well. So, we would love to do it. We’ll see. We’re just trying to get through this tour and then we’ll revisit everything.”
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