R.E.M. turns 2007 Irish residency into live album

R.E.M. this fall will release "Live at The Olympia," a double-disc live album culled from a 2007 five-night residency at the Irish theater.

The Athens, GA-based alt-rockers spent five nights in July 2007 at Dublin's Olympia Theater, testing out songs from their then-forthcoming album, 2008's "Accelerate." The forthcoming 39-track Warner Bros. Records live set hits shelves and digital retailers Oct. 27, and will also be available as a CD/DVD combo complete with concert and backstage footage.

"We were just trying to do something we hadn't done before, which meant there was no relaxing during the set," guitarist Peter Buck said in a press release. "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 the show."

The two-disc set features different incarnations of the songs before they were recorded for "Accelerate," including singles "Man-Sized Wreath" and "Supernatural Superserious." Two bonus songs not included on the album--"On the Fly" and "Staring Down the Barrel of The Middle Distance"--also made the track list, as did a handful of songs from earlier R.E.M. albums, including "Murmur," "Reckoning" and "Life's Rich Pageant."