Simple Minds this week announced its first North American tour in 11 years, a surprisingly short 7-date trek that has left fans who don’t live in Los Angeles or the Northeast severely disappointed. Frontman Jim Kerr, though, says the band is testing the waters for a larger tour.

Simple Minds’ first North American tour in more than a decade will feature just seven dates this October, with new concerts announced today in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston, Montreal and Toronto joining previously revealed shows in New York City and Red Bank, N.J.

Simple Minds today officially announced their first U.S. concerts in more than a decade — the New York City show we reported earlier this week, plus a second concert in Red Bank, N.J., that will feature the band’s “Greatest Hits+” show — while also hinting that Canadian dates are to be announced soon as well.

For the past few months, Simple Minds have been dropping hints that the band will return to the U.S. and Canada this year for the first time in more than a decade — and we’ve finally got our first confirmation of what presumably will be a lengthier tour. According to Live Nation, Simple Minds will play New York City on Oct. 24.

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson — has fleshed out its North American tour schedule, with at least 24 concerts now scheduled in the U.S. and Canada, beginning tonight in New Jersey and running through late July.

This week’s new releases including expanded reissues of R.E.M.’s ‘Green’ and The Breeders’ ‘Last Splash,’ new studio albums from The Fall and Primal Scream), five-disc box sets from Love and Rockets and Gary Numan, a vintage Devo live album, a Talking Heads vinyl reissue and a budget Simple Minds best-of.

Simple Minds continue to toy with the emotions of their long-suffering North American fans, hinting that the band is set to finally tour the U.S. and Canada for the first time in more than a decade, pronouncing this morning via the group’s Facebook page that such concerts may be coming “sooner than you might think.”

To celebrate this month’s American release of Simple Minds’ impressive new best-of set Celebrate: The Greatest Hits+, the band’s label has hooked us up with two copies of the deluxe 3CD, 50-song edition as well as two more copies of the 2CD, 36-song edition to give away to four lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers.

This week’s new releases include the new 2CD set from Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, plus new albums from The Flaming Lips and Meat Puppets, plus a live Dead Can Dance album, a Simple Minds best-of, a reissue of David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane and the vinyl release of The Replacements’ ‘Songs For Slim.’

The reconfigured Big Country — with The Alarm’s Mike Peters filling in for the late frontman Stuart Adamson and the recent addition of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes — is due to release The Journey, the band’s first new album in 14 years, next month, and is previewing the disc with first single “Hurt.”

This week’s new releases include brand-new studio albums from Depeche Mode, Wire, The House of Love, Edwyn Collins, Crime & The City Solution and The Wonder Stuff, plus the U.S. release of The Waterboys’ 2011 record, new compilations from Simple Minds, Midge Ure and the Primitives, and Transvision Vamp reissues.

Simple Minds fans living in North America have been a patient lot, as the band hasn’t toured here in more than a decade. But there is renewed hope today, thanks to a message that reveals the group plans to record music this summer and “hopefully” will tour the U.S. and Canada this fall.

Simple Minds will embark next week on an extensive U.K. tour in support of the band’s forthcoming ‘Celebrate — The Greatest Hits+’ best-0f collection but fans in that country will get another chance to see the band come November, when Jim Kerr and Co. play four arena dates with special guest Ultravox.