RECORD STORE DAY COMES TO BLACK FRIDAY

Record Store Day falls in April, but a bunch of bands, some of them mega, have prepared special Black Friday releases for independent record stores. The participants range from U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Metallica to the Black Keys, the Gaslight Anthem, the Black Crowes and Grinderman. Even the Doors are getting in the act.

U2 is offering a limited-edition three-song live EP on vinyl titled Wide Awake in Europe, Randy Lewis reports in Pop & Hiss. “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 tracks—“Moment of Surrender” and “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”—were recorded at earlier stops on the tour. Only 5k 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 U.K. and Ireland.

"We all wanted to get behind Record Store Day,” 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."