By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times Music Blog
U2 is pitching in with other acts that are offering special releases in conjunction with "Black Friday" promotions Nov. 26 that support independent record stores. The Irish band will be offering a limited-edition three-song live EP on vinyl titled "Wide Awake in Europe."
"Mercy," the freshest of the tracks and recently added to the European leg of the "U2360° Tour," was recorded Sept. 22 in Brussels and is being released for the first time in any form on the new EP. The other two -- "Moment of Surrender" and "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" -- were recorded at earlier stops on the tour. Only 5,000 copies of the EP will be pressed and sold, primarily in North American indie record stores, although some copies will be shipped for sale in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The Black Friday releases from U2, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Metallica, the Gaslight Anthem, the Black Crowes, Grinderman, the Doors, the Black Keys and others are an extension of national Record Store Day, an event each April that a coalition of indie music store operators cooked up to highlight brick-and-mortar stores that still specialize in selling physical CDs and vinyl.
"We all wanted to get behind Record Store Day," U2 bassist Adam Clayton said on behalf of the band in a statement released Monday. "My local record shop introduced me to music I didn't know and I might never have discovered."
-- Randy Lewis
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