Live at The Olympia

Live At The Olympia features 39 tracks and liner notes by author and music journalist Andy Gill. The two-CD set, produced by Jacknife Lee, features 39 songs that capture the best moments from the band's "working rehearsals" at Dublin's fabled Olympia club during which singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, and bassist Mike Mills Stipe tested out new songs for R.E.M.'s 2008 studio album Accelerate.

Live at The Olympia ventures back to July 2007 when R.E.M. set up camp at the venerable Olympia Theatre in Ireland's capital city and tested new material over five nights before fired-up, capacity crowds comprised of fan-club members, friends, family, and fans from all over the world who were privy to R.E.M.'s so-called "experiment in terror," as guitarist Peter Buck puts it. "We were just trying to do something we hadn't done before," Buck says, "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."

Live at The Olympia gives fans that were unable to attend the Irish shows a chance to hear different incarnations of the songs before they were recorded in their final Accelerate versions, such the singles "Man-Sized Wreath" and an early version of "Supernatural Superserious" under its original title "Disguised." As a bonus, the band has included two songs; "On The Fly" and "Staring Down The Barrel Of The Middle Distance," that were only performed live and were not included on Accelerate. In addition, the package features many early R.E.M. favorites from the band's albums Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, and Life's Rich Pageant.