R.E.M will be playing a handful of intimate invite-only shows in major European cities around the release of their new album ‘Up’.
The band’s UK spokeperson has also revealed to NME.com that REM will also be recording a Later With Joolz Holland TV Special in which the whole show will be given over to the band. Broadcast date for the Later… special is to be November 6.
REM have already announced an invite-only BBC Radio 1 show in London to be broadcast live on October 25. Similar promotional shows have been lined up in a number of major European cities before select and invited audiences, most of which are expected to be broadcast on local radio and/or TV.
The band follow-up the London radio show and TV taping with visits to Hamburg (November 2), Madrid (4), Vienna (6), Stockholm (9), finishing off with a performance at the MTV Europe Video Awards in Milan on November 12.
The tracklisting for ‘Up’, released on October 26, has now been confirmed as: ‘Airport Man’, ‘Lotus’, ‘Suspicion’, ‘Hope’, ‘At My Most Beautiful’, ‘The Apologist’, ‘Sad Professor’, ‘You’re In the Air’, ‘Walk Unafraid’, ‘Why Not Smile’, ‘Daysleeper’, ‘Diminished/I’m Not Over You’ (two tracks run together), ‘Parakeet’ and ‘Falls To Climb’.
The first single ‘Daysleeper’ (out Oct 12) comes with new tracks recorded with the help of Screaming Trees’ Barrett Martin, multi-instrumentalist Scott McCaughey and former Beck drummer Joey Waronker.
The track is backed by an instrumental called ‘Emphysema’ on the cassette and the first CD format. CD1 also has the track ‘Why Not Smile (Oxford American Version)’, a track which originally appeared as a freebie on an issue of the Oxford American magazine, a literary periodical based in Oxford, Mississippi.
CD2 delivers ‘Sad Professor (Live In The Studio)’ which was unveiled at the Washington Tibetan Freedom Concert in June.