R.E.M. beings its six-week North American tour on Friday (August 29) at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver-where the trio has been working on its next studio album.
The new tour is not supporting a particular album, since the group’s next release, In Time: The Best Of R.E.M., 1988-2003, doesn’t come out until October 28. But bassist Mike Mills revealed that the group doesn’t feel like it has to have a specific reason to tour.
“I don’t often think about tours as supporting albums, although the next one we do will,” Mills said. “This one, it’s touring around the Best Of, so we won’t be doing quite as many new songs as we might normally have done otherwise. But then the next tour we do, after the next album comes out, we’ll be doing a lot more new stuff.”
The 18-track In Time collection features two new songs, “Bad Day” and “Animal,” which Mills said R.E.M. will play at the shows.
The second show of the tour, Sunday (August 31) in Missoula, Montana, will be webcast live at 9 p.m. ET at remhq.com and wilcoweb.com. Performances from both R.E.M. and opening act Wilco will be part of the webcast.
R.E.M. will release their new studio album next year.