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October 9, 2009 9:08 AM

What do you use to see what bands are playing in your area?

Im tired of finding out a kickass band just played and I could have gone but didnt know about it. There should be a website with a massive database where you put in your postcode or town and it tells you what bands are playing within a specified radius. Shouldnt there? Is there? Any band that wanted to get seen would register their show to this website. Myspace kinda comes close but you have to go to each band's myspace account to see if theyre touring. Unless Im doing it wrong. The bay area has "The List" which is really close to what Im talking about but I want more! How do you find out who's playing around you?

posted by ElmerFishpaw to media & arts (28 answers total)

Facebook's iLike application.
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:13 AM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

I use SonicLiving to tell me when bands I like are playing near me. You tell it who you want to know about (it can import artist names from iTunes, if you want), and it tells you when they're around. Not good for finding new things, but good for keeping track of the bands you never want to miss. One thing that annoys me about it, though, is that sometimes it throws up events where cover bands are playing, or where the music of a band is being played at a symphony or something, just because the band's name is in the event titel.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:14 AM on October 9, 2009

*title
posted by ocherdraco at 9:14 AM on October 9, 2009

To clarify, that's how I know when certain bands that I've specified in advance are coming to my area, which isn't quite what you're asking about.
posted by Jaltcoh at 9:15 AM on October 9, 2009

In Toronto/Montreal/Hamilton I use Stillepost.
posted by saucysault at 9:16 AM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

SonicLiving has been the most fire-and-forget for me. I have it linked to my last.fm profile, so I don't have to even tell them what bands I like; it's all automatic!
posted by zsazsa at 9:17 AM on October 9, 2009

I use iConcertCal, which is an iTunes plugin. It shows you concerts in your area for any band you have in your itunes library. You view the calendar through itunes' visualization function. It's pretty cool because it brings up bands I haven't thought about in forever.
posted by amethysts at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2009

I use iConcertCal or Pollstar.
posted by hilaritas at 9:22 AM on October 9, 2009

Pollstar is usually pretty great at that sort of thing.
My other source is the local University radio page. Also the local weekly publication whenever I see it...
posted by comiddle at 9:23 AM on October 9, 2009

Street press?
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:25 AM on October 9, 2009

iConcertCal is fantastic, especially since I generally have the music of whatever band I'm interested in hearing, or at least interested enough to hunt down tickets.
posted by craven_morhead at 9:25 AM on October 9, 2009

nthing Pollstar. I use this when I travel.

Bands will use their social network accounts to announce tours. This is literally the only reason I still have a Myspace. I check the websites for venues as well. Also, maybe find a news site for the genre(s) you're into. For me, I check ThePRP.com (rock/metal news) and get a lot of tour info from there.
posted by steeb2er at 9:27 AM on October 9, 2009

Check out Songkick. Lets you track bands that you add either manually, or by importing your last.fm profile, or by scanning your iTunes library. And then it has social features (you can track or message individual users) and people can upload setlists and videos and pictures. See for example this Pixies gig.

You can also add gigs (I think it relies on users adding gigs themselves, or importing events from last.fm, but it seems to work pretty well).
posted by Infinite Jest at 9:28 AM on October 9, 2009

Songkick also lets you "follow" particular venues or towns, so when new gigs are announced for those places you get an email. Obviously this is more useful if you live in a town with 10 venues, say, than in London, but it's good if you find a venue that tends to host the music you like. From what I can tell Songkick relies heavily on users adding info, so as you're using it, update it as well when you hear about something.
posted by brighton at 9:38 AM on October 9, 2009

BandsInTown
posted by te1contar at 9:45 AM on October 9, 2009

In NYC, CHI, and LA, there's ohmyrockness.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:51 AM on October 9, 2009

Toronto, I use Rotate This! ticket sales listing.

Rotate This!
posted by smitt at 10:09 AM on October 9, 2009

I use tourfilter. Though, it does have some limitations - as in I had to inform it about the last 3 concerts I was interested in. I guess they aren't quite on the ball with the artists I'm interested in seeing.
posted by baxter_ilion at 10:13 AM on October 9, 2009

turgid dahlia - Street press?

That's what I was thinking. SFWeekly appears to have you covered. Fairly comprehensively, at that.
posted by torquemaniac at 10:30 AM on October 9, 2009

previous thread
posted by knile at 11:09 AM on October 9, 2009

last.fm and local music blogs.
posted by PhatLobley at 11:16 AM on October 9, 2009

London Punk gigs
posted by errspy at 11:58 AM on October 9, 2009

Pollstar is right.

For L.A., there is also losanjealous.com.
posted by paperzach at 12:11 PM on October 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Some friends and I are trying to do this for the East Coast, as a music blog. Link in my profile. (Too self posty?)

Also nthing iConcert Cal.
posted by zazerr at 12:58 PM on October 9, 2009

Try HearWhere.com - it appears to collect concert listings from MySpace, which is an awesome idea because (almost) every band has a Myspace page. Pollstar is good for big-ticket shows but definitely doesn't list everything.
posted by Gortuk at 1:06 PM on October 9, 2009

Should also mention that HearWhere also meets your criteria of being able to specify a location, and a radius, which a lot of the sites mentioned above don't.
posted by Gortuk at 1:09 PM on October 9, 2009

iConcert Cal is awesome. Also, another thing to do is find the local production companies in your area that put on bands and get on their mailing lists. Tickets.com and Ticketmaster.com also have those options.
posted by sacrifix at 5:17 PM on October 9, 2009

"Songkick also lets you "follow" particular venues or towns, so when new gigs are announced for those places you get an email."

As far as I can tell, I'm only getting emails for gigs from bands I'm following, in the towns that I'm following (e.g. gigs in London - I don't get an email about every single Pixies gig). But it's possible to 'follow' more than one town (but not specify a radius, as Gortuk mentions for HearWhere).

I do agree with the last.fm recommendation too, as last.fm will give you suggested gigs - Songkick will only tell you about bands that you are already following.
posted by Infinite Jest at 4:51 AM on October 10, 2009