Looks like a new company is starting a service for listeners to download live shows immediately after the fact at small clubs. It’s a cheap and easy way for bands to promote themselves, and for fans to gain instant satisfaction without all that bulky bootlegging gear. Best of all, the first kiosk was just installed last Friday at none other than Maxwell’s.
I like the idea, although I’d rather them drop the price-per-show to somewhere around $5. Although I guess it needs to be at least $10 to make up for how much they’ll lose via sharing (if I go to a how with 6 people, only one of us will end up buying it). With a lot of good shows coming up this summer I’ll be sure to give it a spin and let you all know.
(via Thoughts from Eric)
Well, this isn’t actually a new concept. Clear Channel has been running something similar for a couple of years now…
http://www.instantliveconcerts.com/
I know because they did two Kay Hanley shows.
Admittedly, the prices were a little high ($15 per CD) and since they’re CD-Rs some players have trouble with them (my XBox, for instance). Despite that, it’s great to have a copy of the show you went to.
Crap….left out an end tag. Can’t wait to be able to edit comments
That’s very cool, I forgot about those. That probably makes it more accessible overall (more people have CD players), but I think the mp3 idea is definitely the way of the future – simply because the whole sharing idea is practically built-in.
Pearl Jam also did something similar, although their shows are too big to let everybody pickup the CDs right away. Instead you could buy the recordings of the show online, and within an hour of the end of the show they would send you a link to download it in mp3 format. Then they would send you the finished CDs a week or two later. They also only charged like $13 each, and all were at least 2 discs, if not 3.