‘Music Is the Message’ At Chicago’s Metro — And It All Started With a Voicemail From R.E.M.

Joe Shanahan kept a voicemail from R.E.M. for 20 years. The owner of Chicago venue Metro isn’t sure where it is now. Erased? Stored on an old piece of technology? Accidentally discarded? But he does know that the voicemail launched his 1,100-capacity club nearly 45 years ago.

Shanahan had begun hosting DJ events at what he named Smart Bar on one of the top floors of Chicago’s former Swedish community center turned concert venue – first as the Northside Auditorium Building, which hosted greats like John Prine and Bonnie Koloc, and then as Stages Music Hall. The Chicago native was spinning records at his own loft when the crowds of 200-300 people became too large and he transitioned his talents to Smart Bar that kicked off in the concert hall around midnight and went until 4 a.m. or 5 a.m.

The first DJ to perform at Smart Bar was house music pioneer Frankie Knuckles in the summer of 1982 and, from there, the space became known for its fusion of house and punk.

“I was at that fulcrum, that pivot culturally in Chicago. All the other bars were just playing Top 40 music,” Shanahan tells Billboard from Gman Tavern, the watering hole next to Metro that he bought years after drinking at the bar with Prine “trading bullshit about baseball and life and politics.”

“While New York was birthing rap and hip-hop,” he adds. “Chicago was birthing house and industrial.”

Prior to Smart Bar, he had flown out to see R.E.M. play the Big Apple’s Danceteria and fell in love with the band’s sound.

“Being the Chicago, South Side Irish hustler that I am, I walked backstage. I had a business card that had my name on it, had a phone number on it, but didn’t say anything about Metro, didn’t say anything about Stages. Because they didn’t exist yet,” he says. To R.E.M., “I was like, ‘Hey, if you ever get stuck and don’t have a gig in Chicago and don’t have a promoter or don’t have a venue, call me. I will help. I will be there for you.’”

In 1982, R.E.M. left Shanahan the voicemail.

“These guys remembered that,” Shanahan says. “I was like, ‘Okay. I’ll do this’ and I did. I did a ticket price for $7 at the door, $5 in advance [at Stages Music Hall]. I paid the band a little bit of money. We broke even. And I thought, ‘Gosh, that was fun. What are we going to do next weekend?’”

More calls started coming in, which Shanahan credits to R.E.M. for telling people how much fun they had playing his venue in Chicago. Shanahan began booking shows at Stages, which he changed to Metro when he took over the main stage. He named the venue after the Paris public transport system because he felt the many staircases of the 1927 building resembled the Metro stop where he got stuck trying to find his way out to the Eiffel Tower.

Much like the Swedish community center before it, Shanahan wanted Metro to serve Chicago by supporting local talent, as well as bringing non-regional acts for what was once considered a flyover state for touring acts.

“First couple of months, we had no idea what we were doing and it was more about that we just liked the music. We went after bands we liked,” says Shanahan, who booked local bands including Naked Raygun and Ministry. From there, he flew around to cities that nurtured punk and alternative music cultures like London and New York, where he saw New Order and booked them for Metro.

The day New Order first played Metro “was one of the hottest days in Chicago. The air conditioning at Metro – what we had at the time was inadequate for the amount of people that were in the venue for as long as they were in the venue,” Shanahan recalls, adding that Wax Records founder Jim Nash, told him “I sweated off five pounds of beer and water” that night.

New Order and Joy Division co-founder Peter Hook remains a friend to this day and will play two nights at Metro later this year.

According to Shanahan, Chicago and Metro gained a reputation for nurturing metal and other burgeoning genres of rock music. In 1983, Metallica played their first Chicago show at Metro. In 2024, Metallica returned to play Chicago’s 60,000-plus capacity Soldier Field and played a video of their days performing at Metro.

Three years before the Soldier Field performance, Metallica played at Metro for the 30th anniversary of the Black Album and sold tickets for $19.83 to reflect the first year they took the stage in Chicago.

Metro went on to put Chicago on the map bringing in shows from Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, The Ramones, PJ Harvey, Joe Strummer, Elliott Smith and more. And in the 1990s, Metro was ready to welcome the rise of grunge, punk and alternative rock, booking gigs from Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sleater-Kinney, Soundgarden, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Mudhoney and Chicago’s own Smashing Pumpkins.

The Pumpkins “played every month for a year,” Shanahan says, calling Metro the band’s laboratory. “They would open for people. They would play in the middle slot. They would headline. My staff at one point was saying, ‘God, if we have to hear the Pumpkins one more time, Joe.’”

Along with help from venues in Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland and Cincinnati, the Midwest touring circuit began to thrive, circulating local bands like Soul Asylum, Husker Du, The Replacements and The Afghan Whigs. By Metro’s 15 anniversary, the club had enough notoriety to book two nights with Bob Dylan to celebrate.

“Bob had just released a record [1997’s Time Out of Mind] and he’s heard about Metro and he wanted to play there,” says Shanahan. “He had very specific ideas on how to do the ticketing, which meant we had to sell each ticket by hand at the door before the show.”

When tickets went on sale at the box office, there were more than 2,000 fans waiting in line and Shanahan and Jam Productions’ Nick Miller spent their day attempting to weed out fake fans. Scalpers, he explains, used to put teenagers in line with a hot dog and a beeper to get tickets they could easily flip for a quick profit. So, he and Miller went down the line asking people what their favorite Dylan song was and booting those who didn’t pass the test.

Metro’s ticketing strategy has gotten more sophisticated over the years. The venue team – many of whom have been working there for 20 or 30 years – will sort through ticket purchases to weed out ticket resellers looking for out of country requests or bulk ticket buyers. “Artists know that we’re going to do the ticketing right. We’re not greedy people looking to make $1 or two off of a ticket. It’s about getting real fans at the club,” Shanahan says.

Outside of the ticketing process, very few things have changed at Metro in the last four decades. The floors are the same. The fixtures are the same. The railings and the doors are the same. Only the stage and the sound system (which Metallica’s Lars Ulrich gave his seal of approval) have been upgraded and the floor that previously held Smart Bar is now office space for Shanahan and his team that still operate under the parent company Stages Music Hall. But Metro continues to book big names like Snoop Dogg, Chance the Rapper, Fall Out Boy, Luke Combs, Common and more.

The secret to Metro’s longevity, Shanahan says, is “music is the message.”

“I’m still a fan. I still love new, emerging talent. One thing that’s been consistent in my life is, I still buy records every Saturday morning. I still listen to a lot of radio online from KEXP or even FIP in France,” he adds. “People who work at Metro are also music fans and that’s what keeps the indie spirit alive.”

Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the building and 45 years of Metro and Shanahan is ready to celebrate. He’s hoping to get some bucket list talent with help from promoters C3 Presents (Lollapalooza) and Jam Productions like Tracy Chapman, The Rolling Stones and U2. Shanahan asks, “Bono, Dylan played Metro. Why not you?”