R.E.M. will release a brand-new double live album, entitled R.E.M. Live At The Olympia on October 27th, 2009 on Warner Bros. Records. The two-CD set, produced by Jacknife Lee, features 39 songs that capture the best moments from the band’s “working rehearsals” at Dublin’s fabled Olympia club during which singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills tested out new songs for R.E.M.’s 2008 studio album Accelerate.
Live At The Olympia ventures back to July 2007 when R.E.M. set up camp at the venerable Olympia Theatre in Ireland’s capital city and tested new material over five nights before fired-up, capacity crowds comprised of fan-club members, friends, family, and fans from all over the world who were privy to R.E.M.’s so-called “experiment in terror,” as guitarist Peter Buck puts it. “We were just trying to do something we hadn’t done before,” Buck says, “which meant there was no relaxing during the set. Every second we were playing something we didn’t know all that well. Which was kind of good – there were all kinds of terror elements going on during that show.”
