I thought I'd kicked the traces

I thought the wheels would spin

I thought I'd jumped the fence and bolted

Looks like I'm back again Wanderlust lyrics

While members of the legendary rock band R.E.M. have individually stated since disbanding that they will never reunite - times have potentially changed their tune. Tantalizing clues indicate an R.E.M. reunion tour may be coming in 2020.

It all started on September 3rd, 2019 when the bands' official Facebook page teased a big announcement coming tomorrow, with an image of the album Monster and a note about the 25th anniversary of its release--which would lead most to believe they are simply talking about a remastered re-issue of the album. However, if we dig a little deeper we can find enigmatic (a word that has been married to R.E.M. since fellow legend David Letterman referred to Michael Stipe as such during their debut performance on Late Night in 1983) clues that there may be more to this surprise announcement than a simple re-issue.

The Clues:

There are a few clues worth paying attention to here, one is rather small, a social media post from Sept 1 which featured an MTV News clip from 1994 announcing that R.E.M. would tour for the first time in five years to support the controversial album Monster, not a big deal you say? Agreed, but it's a tasty little nugget.

The second clue, and this is a BIG one, is a web domain and the associated WhoIs info. If one visits www.remtour.com they are greeted with a prompt to put in a username and password. Why? Why would such a website be on lockdown? If we dive a little deeper we can see that this domain is, indeed registered to the corporate entity that is, in fact, R.E.M.

This entity is called R.E.M. Athens, LLC. which has owned this domain since 2002, December 5, 2002 to be more precise, roughly a week prior to their announcement of the 2003 world tour, to be even more precise. What makes this interesting is that the WhoIs info says that this domain, which has been untouched for years, was updated on August 28, 2019 -- roughly a week before this new big announcement is supposed to come.

Why would R.E.M. decide to reunite and tour now? Well, recently original drummer Bill Berry has been back in the swing of things as far as playing live shows go, he is set to be featured at a Drive-By Truckers show on September 13th. We've also seen recent stories about Michael Stipe and a cache of new songs he has written for an upcoming "solo project" - a telling sign of artistic yearning, considering Stipe has stated that until recently, he hadn't written any new lyrics since R.E.M. broke up in 2011.

Without a doubt, the biggest reason for a 2020 tour is that it is an election year and R.E.M. have always held a megaphone when it comes to political engagement and left-of-center political issues. No doubt the members are eager to get out there to encourage folks to vote the "Orange Menace" out of office -- of perhaps, given the 25th anniversary of Monster, which is an orange-colored album, they are dead set on defeating the Orange Monster.

Stay tuned for updates on this exclusive For Your Society story.

UPDATE: For Your Society has reached out to R.E.M. Athens, LLC and spoke with a rep there. We asked about a surprise tour announcement coming tomorrow--the response was roughly 10 seconds of dead air followed by the statement "I wouldn't personally know anything about that" - make of that what you will.

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