New Yorkers who happened to be on Rivington Street on Monday (Jan. 21) caught R.E.M. performing in both a local sex toy shop and the restaurant next door.
The band convened on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to film the video for “Supernatural Serious,” the first single from its forthcoming album, “Accelerate,” due April 1 via Warner Bros.
R.E.M.’s first stop was Italian restaurant Inoteca, where they filmed in a corner while business bustled around them. The band, whose members are friends with the proprietors, called ahead to set up the mini-shoot, general manager David Massoni tells Billboard.com. Diners, many of whom recognized the group, looked on with interest.
The trio then moved next door to sex toy emporium Babeland around 8 p.m. A pair of cameras captured them playing near the window display at the front of the store to an audience of surprised employees. Babeland co-owner Claire Cavanah says a band representative had called just that afternoon proposing the store as a location for part of the video.
“Of course, we were thrilled,” she says. By the end of the band’s 30-minute performance, a crowd of onlookers had gathered outside the store, according to manager Ana Moran.
Leading up to the release of “Accelerate,” R.E.M. will be performing in March at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas as part of the South by Southwest festival, as well as near Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., at the Langerado Music Festival.
Meanwhile, the band has set up an album countdown site, ninetynights.com, which features a new video snippet each day.
