It seems former R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe’s favorite mode of performance these days is the pop-up solo covers set, whether he’s opening for Patti Smith or paying tribute to David Bowie.
As Paste reports, on Sunday, Stipe appeared at New York City’s Carnegie Hall as part of a benefit concert for climate-justice org Pathway to Paris, where he played four songs with the assistance of fellow Athenian Andy LeMaster on guitar and Smith’s daughter (and Pathway to Paris founder), Jesse Paris Smith, on keyboard.
Check out the set, as recorded by an attendee, below. It includes a version of Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy”—a Stipe favorite that he and LeMaster performed in Athens in tribute to the late Jeremy Ayers last year—as well as two Ringo Starr tunes and a Velvet Underground classic.
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