R.E.M. this week revealed the tracklist for its 39-song, 2CD Live at the Olympia, an album — due out Oct. 26 — that was culled from five nights of “working rehearsals” in 2007 that preceded the recording of last year’s hard-rocking comeback Accelerate.
The impressively deep tracklist — don’t be looking for the hits on this one — includes many of the songs that ultimately made it onto Accelerate, some super-rare old tracks from the I.R.S. years (“Romance,” “Letter Never Sent,” “Second Guessing”), ’90s-era album cuts (“Circus Envy,” “New Test Leper”) and a few tunes that haven’t yet been released (“Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance,” “On the Fly”). (Full tracklist after the jump.)
To get a taste of the recording — only the second live album ever released by the band, following 2007’s lackluster R.E.M. Live — “Driver 8” (already available on the Reckoning Songs From the Olympia teaser EP) and “Harborcoat” are streaming at remdublin.com.
Michael Stipe and Co. spent five nights at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre during June and July of 2007 road-testing new songs prior to recording Accelerate, which came out the following year. On the band’s Web site, Peter Buck recalls the concerts as an “experiment in terror”:
“We were just trying to do something we hadn’t done before, 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.”
The material on Live at the Olympia was produced by Accelerate co-producer Jacknife Lee. A special-edition 2CD/1DVD set will feature a film of the Dublin concerts by Vincent Moon and Jeremiah, who produced the band’s video for “Supernatural Superserious.” A video excerpt of R.E.M. playing “Pretty Persuasion” is available at remdublin.com.
Full tracklist after the jump…
Tracklist: R.E.M., Live at the Olympia
1. “Living Well is the Best Revenge”
2. “Second Guessing”
3. “Letter Never Sent”
4. “Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance”
5. “Disturbance at the Heron House”
6. “Mr. Richards”
7. “Houston”
8. “New Test Leper”
9. “Cuyahoga”
10. “Electrolite”
11. “Man-Sized Wreath”
12. “So. Central Rain”
13. “On The Fly”
14. “Maps and Legends”
15. “Sitting Still”
16. “Driver 8”
17. “Horse to Water”
18. “I’m Gonna DJ”
19. “Circus Envy”
20. “These Days”
21. “Drive”
22. “Feeling Gravitys Pull”
23. “Until the Day is Done”
24. “Accelerate”
25. “Auctioneer”
26. “Little America”
27. “1,000,000”
28. “Disguised”
29. “The Worst Joke Ever”
30. “Welcome to the Occupation”
31. “Carnival of Sorts”
32. “Harborcoat”
33. “Wolves, Lower”
34. “I’ve Been High”
35. “Kohoutek”
36. “West of the Fields”
37. “Pretty Persuasion”
38. “Romance”
39. “Gardening at Night”
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS:
- Peter Buck, Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey plan triple-bill band-swapping tour
- Thom Yorke, Michael Stipe, Frank Black pay tribute to Miracle Legion’s Mark Mulcahy
- R.E.M. previews live album with ‘Reckoning Songs From the Olympia’ digital EP
- R.E.M. planning ‘Reckoning’ reissue, ‘Dublin Working Rehearsals’ live album
- R.E.M. crashes its own tribute concert, plays surprise song with Patti Smith
