Like many of my fellow Generation X-ers, I am a child shaped by divorce and upheaval. My parents separated at least six times before finally divorcing when I was 13, and we moved more than a dozen times before I turned 11. I lived all over Southern California, spent a year in Iowa for 2nd grade, and moved back to California for a few years before my dad took a job in New York City and uprooted my younger brother and me yet again. By the time we landed in Summit, NJ in January of 1982, I was on my 6th elementary school.

I say this because I believe the frequent change and uncertainty in my early years led me to seek out something stable – something I could have, something that was mine, something I could recognize and take with me no matter what was going on in my life. Music became a defining part of my identity and one of my only constant companions.

I remember from a very young age that my parents always had music playing in the house and in the car.  In California we listened to KRTH 101, the Mighty 690, and KIIS FM. We added KROQ to that list in 1980. I was fascinated by my parents’ record collection. My dad loved The Beach Boys, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Doors, Neil Diamond, Jim Croce, Motown, and a lot of ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll and doo wop, but he also listened to Blondie, Queen, and Devo. My mom listened to folk artists and show tunes.

It was in New Jersey that I began discovering music on my own and where my R.E.M. story begins.

In the den of our house on Oak Ridge Avenue I turned once again to music to feel some stability and connection. My dad had brought back a late-‘60s Sansui 800 tuner when he returned from Vietnam in 1970, and in 1984, that den and that tuner became a portal to an entirely new world. The glowing bar marking station frequencies drew me in and I quickly gravitated to the left of the dial and found college and independent radio: WRSU (Rutgers University), WSOU (Seton Hall University), WPRB (Princeton University), WFMU (when it was still part of Upsala College), and at the other end WLIR (a Long Island-based station widely considered responsible for bringing alternative and New Wave to America). I also listened to WNEW and Z100 sometimes, but those end-of-the-dial stations were my go-tos and my way into a world of music that has stayed with me to this day.

I started listening to R.E.M. after Reckoning was released. Reckoning came out two days before my 13th birthday in April of ’84, but it wasn’t until May that I heard the band for the first time, courtesy of college radio. The station was probably WRSU. The song was “Pretty Persuasion.” The opening guitar demanded my attention. What was this sound? Who was this band? I fell in love immediately. I bought Reckoning, Murmur, and Chronic Town and listened to these albums on repeat in my bedroom on the third floor of our house.  On a clear day or night I could see New York City. It was a vibe.

I don’t recall if I heard about the June 9, 1984 Rock Influences: Folk Rock show featuring R.E.M. with Roger McGuinn and John Sebastian on MTV or WNEW – probably both – but the show was at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ and I immediately hatched a plan to go. Luckily for me, the show was on a Saturday. I knew my mom loved John Sebastian and The Lovin’ Spoonful. Thirteen-year-old me had no idea who Roger McGuinn was at the time, but I would soon learn about the Byrds because of R.E.M. This pattern of being introduced to bands through R.E.M. quickly became a regular occurrence and I credit the band for heavily influencing my music tastes.

Somehow, I talked my mom into taking me to this show. I recall being nervous and excited as we parked the car and walked into the theater. I have no idea if this was an all-ages show, but I think because I was with my mom they let me in. I know we stood toward the back of the venue and it was packed. I couldn’t always see the stage but when R.E.M. walked out and launched into “Pale Blue Eyes,” I stood transfixed. I was introduced to the Velvet Underground that night. There was no going back. 

After purchasing White Light/White Heat the following year I learned via the liner notes that VU played their first show at my high school, opening for the (now nearly universally forgotten) Myddle Class on December 11, 1965. My friend and fellow obsessive music pal, Rebecca, and I commemorated the event a few times while we were in high school by standing on the auditorium stage on that date like the teenage nerds we were.

I evangelized R.E.M. to Rebecca. I played the records for her in my room and talked about the band members – I had a particular affinity for Mike Mills because I had started playing bass the year before and convinced my dad to hunt down a Rickenbacker 4001 for my birthday. Rebecca was hooked and promptly headed to Scotti’s, our local record shop, to purchase her own copies of R.E.M.’s albums. Sadly, Scotti’s closed its doors in 2025 after 70 years in business, but it was at that record shop where I found dozens of R.E.M. 12” singles in the cutout bins and waited in line overnight for concert tickets – including to many R.E.M. shows. After the show at the Capitol Theater I would go on to see R.E.M. two dozen times between 1984 and 1990.

Fast forward to July 2023. Michael Shannon and Jason Narducy played Murmur from start to finish at Metro in Chicago. I always get a tinge of nostalgic excitement when a band covers an R.E.M. song in concert. The Sunshine Boys played “Moral Kiosk” when they opened for Juliana Hatfield at the Turf Club in St. Paul on February 5, 2020 – my last live show before the world shut down for COVID. I might have sung along a little too loud but I don’t regret it. I’ve heard Built To Spill cover “Harborcoat” a few times. There are also several amazing R.E.M. cover bands, including Lower Wolves and Dead Letter Office. To hear Shannon and Narducy play an entire R.E.M. album was something else entirely and I was sad to have missed the performance. 

You can imagine my elation when Shannon, Narducy & Friends announced a seven-date tour beginning in February 2024 at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The run expanded to nine shows when they added two nights at Sketch Fest in San Francisco to start the tour. Those lucky Sketch Fest attendees also got Reckoning from start to finish. I attended Minneapolis, Athens, Carrboro, and Washington, D.C. I teared up a bit at the conclusion of the Black Cat show in D.C. Would I ever hear these songs played live again and by such talented people? I talked with others at these shows who felt the same way. We loved R.E.M. and knew they were never getting back together. These shows were the next best thing. Little did we know what was coming.

I spent the 2024-2025 academic year on sabbatical and my main project focused on music festivals hosted in smaller or out-of-the-way places that had a big impact on the scene. I started at Merge 35 in Carrboro, NC and it was there that I chatted with Jason Narducy about the Murmur tour. He told me I might be happy to know a certain band was going to tour a certain album that was turning 40 years old in 2025. That album was Fables of the Reconstruction. 

The wheels in my head immediately started turning. I was on sabbatical. I could attend all the shows and write about and photograph the experience. When would I have the chance again? Everything fell into place. Fables was a critical album for me. Sure, I first heard R.E.M. shortly after Reckoning was released, but it was Fables that I had eagerly anticipated. There was something about that album that has stuck with me all these years. I can put the needle down on “Feeling Gravitys Pull” and be transported back to 1985, the familiarity of my room and record collection, and the feeling that something made sense during my tumultuous teenage years.

I made a list with venues, dates, and presale codes and bought a ticket to every show. I made travel arrangements. I felt like my own tour manager! February 14, 2025 rolled around and I found myself at Pappy and Harriett’s for the first show of the tour. It was an amazing experience. Over the next month I heard Fables and more, 20 different times. I would see all four members of R.E.M. join the band on stage at the 40 Watt in Athens and play together. I felt the joy in the audience each night. I saw the joy and hard work from the band. Something magical was happening and I was grateful to be a part of it.

During the Fables tour Michael Shannon repeatedly teased touring Lifes Rich Pageant in 2026. I knew I had to cover that tour too. The albums are a natural comparison – Fables was moody, rich, and deep, and cemented the band’s college radio status; Pageant was raucous, more political, and broke them through to a wider audience. The book needed to be about both tours, both albums, and the cultural moment and historical musical legacy that made this cover band and tours not just possible, but so successful and impactful.

So now I find myself, 42 years after hearing those opening notes of “Pretty Persuasion” on WRSU, writing a book about what is essentially an R.E.M. cover band – yet they’re so much more.  Shannon asked audiences every night on the Pageant tour if they would show up if the band toured Document in 2027. The answer was always a resounding YES and while I probably won’t be at every show, I’ll be at as many as I can make happen. I did not anticipate my love of a band I started listening to when I was thirteen would — four decades later — inspire a multi-year book project, take me all over the country twice (and to Dublin!), and provide me with new friends and experiences I will never forget – but isn’t that what music does and why we love it so?

JEN TIERNAN is an associate professor of Communication and Media at Minnesota State University Mankato. Her work focuses on critical and cultural studies, visual communication, and popular culture. She is also an avid photographer and live music enthusiast. In 2024, while on sabbatical, she devised a way to make a research project from the Shannon, Narducy & Friends tours, and is currently writing a book about the experience. You can read tour diaries and see show photos on her Substack, linked here:  

JEN TIERNAN’S SUBSTACK


In addition, there’s a great sample shot of Jen’s in Box 16 of The SPIRAL

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