REM will not tour their forthcoming album, ‘Up’, according to nerws reports. It marks the fourth time this decade that the Atlanta-based group have refused to tour an album.
The refusal, which was reported on US music website Sonicnet on Thursday (August 20), comes primarily because of the departure of drummer and founding member Bill Berry last year. When first reports of a new album came last year, Berry was still in the band and there were definite plans to tour. These were hinted at as REM made their first post-Berry live outing at the ’98 Tibetan Freedom Concert this summer. The tour was rumoured to be kicking off in Australia/New Zealand in the first few months of 1999. But now travelling will be confined to promo tours, as well as the previously reported appearances at the Neil Young-led Bridge School Benefit Concerts in San Francisco on October 17 and 18.
The only album that the band mounted a world tour for was 1994’s ‘Monster’. They did not tour for ‘Out of Time’ (1991), ‘Automatic For The People’ (1992), or ‘New Adventures In High-Fi’ (1996).
The band are rumoured to be travelling to London later this month for press, but are not expected to repeat their 1991 secret gigs, which saw the band playing the diminutive Borderline Club in Soho as Bingo Hand Job.