R.E.M. fans in Athens, Georgia, got a huge surprise on Thursday, February 27, when all four original band members—Michael Stipe, Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills—showed up at the 40 Watt Club without any warning. No one expected to see them together again, and it made the night extra special.
The crowd couldn’t believe their eyes when the band started playing their old song from 1984 called Pretty Persuasion. This wasn’t just a random visit—it was part of a fun tribute show put on by actor Michael Shannon and musician Jason Narducy. They’re traveling around to celebrate 40 years since R.E.M.’s 1985 album, Fables of the Reconstruction, came out.
The surprises kept coming. Bill Berry played drums for a song called Wendell Gee. Then Mike Mills joined Shannon and Narducy to sing some other cool songs, like Strange by Wire, Crazy by Pylon, and an old R.E.M. song called 1,000,000 that not everyone knows. Mills and Buck also teamed up to play Second Guessing from the album Reckoning, plus two famous songs by the Velvet Underground: Femme Fatale and There She Goes Again.
After the show, R.E.M. posted a happy message on Instagram. They shared a photo taken by their friend Chris Bilheimer, who said, “It’s always fun when you get together with your old coworkers.” The band agreed, saying, “INDEED!!”
Michael Stipe has said many times that R.E.M. is done for good, but this is the second time in less than a year that they’ve played together since stopping in 2011. It’s also only the second time Bill Berry has joined them onstage since he left the band way back in 1997. For fans, it was like a dream come true!
