Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with concerts

Who picks the music they play at concerts when the band isn't playing?

cptspalding — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:59:12 -0800

Who picks the music played at a concert when a band is not on stage and why do they pick the songs they do? I've always wondered who picks the music played at concerts when a band is not on stage, such as the period between opening act(s) and headliners and while people are filing in/out.

Are the choices made by the headliner (or someone associated with the headlining band/performer), the record label, the house, or the person running the soundboard? Is there any rhyme or reason behind the selections such as a label wanting to promote a certain artist, or the band trying to give exposure to artists they like, respect, etc.? For those who have gotten to do this, are there any "rules" you've followed to help manage the crowd's energy level, enthusiasm, etc. ?

I've been to some shows where it seems that a lot of care has been given to the music played during these interstitial periods and it really enhances the experience by either acting as a "pallet cleanser" between acts or continuing to build a certain energy level or vibe.

While at some shows it seems like someone just plugged in an iPod, set it to shuffle and walked away.

Rising sun rock and roll?

soma lkzx — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:56:43 -0800

Tokyo Damage Report's list of shows and venues has sold me on going to see bands play while I'm in Japan, are there any resources like this for cities besides Tokyo? Turns out that going to a show alone isn't so bad when you're in a foreign country and your cultural/language skills are that of a 2 year old - I just need to know where to go! My musical taste in this case is just guitars and energy; I'll take anything from hardcore to twee to psychobilly. I think my guidebook has things like jazz pretty well covered, but feel free to bring suggestions from that end of the spectrum as well.

I'm going to be hanging around in indeterminate cities between Tokyo and Nagasaki for the next ten days, so the net is pretty wide. Show lists, venue lists, or even venue names would all be really helpful.

(And while I'm at it, if you have any amazing suggestions on less rock-n-rolly things to do or festivals in the next week, you can drop that in, too!)

Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall

holdkris99 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:03:06 -0800

Tell me some indie/punk shows/venues I MUST see in England/Amsterdam/France/Spain (but mainly England) this fall (mid-August through October). I am most interested in small to midsize shows (bands that haven't broke through in the U.S. would be great) and venues that I might not necessarily find unless I am looking for them specifically on Pollstar or something similar. I know this is a very open ended question, but so is my trip. Thanks. Oh, and, As great fun as they may (or may not) be I am too old in body (if not mind and spirit) for the giant festival scenes.

Finding Concerts Made Easy.

ryecatcher — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:40:41 -0800

LosAngelesConcertFilter: Is there some site that lists all the live acts playing at various venues around town, broken down by date? Like, if I want to see who is playing this weekend in LA I can just hop on to this wonderful site and it'll show me who is at The Wiltern, Spaceland, Bowl, etc.?

I realize I could just hop around from site to site but you don't know me and here's the thing: I'm lazy and I like things to be made as easy as possible for me.

Yes, I could also flip through the Weekly.

But seriously, there has to be something else that's even easier than that.

Dawson City Music Festival

Space Coyote — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:09:06 -0800

Dawson City Music Festival - before I dive in head first and just book a hotel and flight right now, tell me what I need to know about the trip and the festival. Any advice and things to make sure I bring / prepare for from people who have gone in the past would be much appreciated. I'm not much of an impulse traveller, so I want to get out of my comfort zone a bit, and go some place I'd never normally get to.

The TicketMonster is coming to eat you!!!

gauchodaspampas — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:28:39 -0800

With the internet making it much easier to sell things remotely, how is Ticketmaster still able to virtually monopolize event ticket sales? It seems like breaking into the ticket vending business ought to be made easier by the internet, but still ticketmaster controls most ticket sales in the United States. I know that they often have exclusivity agreements with venues or teams, which is still a huge part of it. But are the bonuses they offer still really worth it? Why is the possibility of other vendors coming in and offering better deals than TM not enticing enough to events and venues? And why don't more venues choose to save money by selling their own tickets online? I guess I can see why. I would require additional staff to handle that operation. So maybe a better question is, are places that do this just throwing money away, or are they onto something that others just aren't following? Getting back to exclusivity. I would think that it'd be hard for a new company to just come into the business and start selling tickets to big arena and stadium events. But what prevents them from starting with smaller venues by just offering better prices than TM? What else is preventing other companies from breaking into the ticket vending biz?

And please, PLEASE, let's not turn this into a Ticketmaster pile-on. Just the facts, ma'am.

How do I find copies of music posters, flyers, live recordings, from a specific Steely Dan concert from the 70’s?

elationfoundation — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:45:40 -0800

My Fathers birthday is coming up and I want to give him a piece of the past. How do I find copies of music posters, flyers, live recordings, from a specific Steely Dan concert from the 70’s? The concert is Steely Dan, the venue was Winterland in San Francisco, and the date was May 5th 1973. My father is an amazing storyteller and very often talks about his first big concert. He remembers everything… enough in fact for me to figure out exactly what concert it was.

I have been scowering the internet for groups that collect and trade in that sort of thing so I can get either a copy of any of the publicity or an original. A live recording would also be great but I doubt technology allowed for people to sneak in and do that in the 70’s. I have had no luck in finding anyone who has anything though.

The concert is Steely Dan, the venue was Winterland in San Francisco, and the date was May 5th 1973. If anyone knows where I could find any memorabilia from this concert it would be amazing.

moospace

Pants! — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:30:02 -0800

I hate to say anything nice about myspace, but it seems that it is the best source for upcoming tour dates. Conundrum: Unfortunately, I can't filter bands by location. For instance, for this list of bands, tell me when they're going to be in my city.

Since they're all posted in what looks to be the same format, I'd like to use some service that let's me load all of those tour dates into a database, do some WHERE clauses, and get my own custom show list.

Even better, I'd like someone else to handle all of the heavy lifting and offer this as a service on the web.

Also: this obviously doesn't have to use myspace data, but I trust data from bands or promotors a lot more than a random guy on the internet (see footnote 2)

1) I don't have a myspace account, so if I can do this as a member, I apologize.
2) I'm aware of the user-driven web 2.0 concert content. But it often misses lots of bands, in my experience

Best concert seats at MSG for The Police?

snatchos — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 07:43:42 -0800

Going to watch my first favorite band (The Police) at MSG in August - where to sit? I'm so excited that The Police are touring this year - they were my first favorite band as a kid and I can't wait to see them! I'll be watching at Madison Square Garden in August and want some advice where to sit. I don't mind paying the $$ to see these guys as it's a once in a lifetime for me but I want to have the best seats that will give me the best view and experience.

My gut instinct is that the best seats would be inthe lower bowl at an angle to the stage (section 50-59 or 74-80). Or maybe row A of the section right above those? My initial thoughts were that floor seats centre stage 10-20 rows back would be the best but I'm not sure what the view will be like (people standing on chairs, etc) and I'm not sure what the experience will be like (close proximity, people pushing, etc).

Any advice about the MSG concert experience and best seats for an event like this would be much appreciated. Also, any lines on where I can get tickets at reasonable prices - right now brokers are selling these tickets at about $2000 apiece and only 1 or 2 listings are appearing on eBay every day.

Thanks!

Live music in London

gravelshoes — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:21:59 -0800

Where can I find the most comprehensive online listings of live music in London?

Is it possible to meet The Who before or after current shows?

after_hours — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 09:12:22 -0800

AgingBritishRockStarFilter: This is both incredibly random, and a longshot, but does anyone have any recent experience of meeting The Who on their present tour? If so, how did you manage this? Or are they fairly isolated from the likes of me (obsessive Who fanboys)? I'm going to my first show tomorrow night, and it would be a dream come true to talk to the boys, if only briefly behind the arena.

Concert Listings Online

ghastlyfop — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:24:40 -0800

In browsing several concert venue websites, I noticed that many of them don't list their upcoming concerts and instead link off to www.livenation.com or www.pollstar.com. Does anyone know why this is? Is it a legal issue regarding the promoters of these events?

A Special New Band

salvia — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 16:01:32 -0800

Help me track down a pop punk band I heard on a small Berkeley radio station Tuesday evening (4/4). They may have played in LA last weekend (4/1-4/2). Last Tuesday, sometime between 8 and 10 pm, (as I remember it), I was listening to KALX, UC Berkeley's campus station. The DJ had been to LA that past weekend, and was re-creating her trip, in music. She played two great songs, back to back. They sounded like the same band. I want to find out what band(s) it was.

The music reminded me of The Dead Milkmen, maybe with more changes in tempo. The first song was about (paraphrasing here), I'll never do that to you again, never make you feel that way again. The second song seemed to be about some guy returning to his family, several times rhyming the words "wife" and "strife."

The DJ introduced the next song, reminding listeners she was chronologically re-creating her weekend in LA, and that after the show, they stayed at someone's house, and one of those people happened to also be in a band, and here was one of his band's songs. That makes me think the previous band had played at some show.

To find this band, I tried emailing the 9-midnight DJ on KALX, who said it wasn't her show, and the 6-9 pm DJ has his playlists online and appears to program a different type of music. So, maybe I was listening to 104.1 "Berkeley Liberation Radio," or another of the small Berkeley stations, with a slim chance it was one of the larger public stations like KPFA or KQED.

The phrase "the pharmacy" did get used, so I thought that might be the band name, but it's not The Pharmacy, judging by their MySpace stuff. Maybe it's a venue? Oh, and I tried Googling variations on "punk band" "greater Los Angeles metropolitan region" "sounds like the Dead Milkmen" to no avail. ;)

Anyone catch the show, hear the radio program, or know the band? It was one of those moments that gets you excited about music again.

Concert Notification

Jomoma — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 14:50:17 -0800

Is there a website that will notify me of nearby concerts from a list of performers I provide? I want to sign up, give them a list of artists, and receive an email when a concert is announced within so many miles. I'd rather not visit each artist's website and sign up over and over to be notified, because (1) I'm lazy and (2) I don't want to give out my email that many times to get notified about every tv appearance, festival and all the other irrelevant "news". I feel like it might have been asked here before, but I couldn't find it in a search, or anything like it on google.

What is the guitar effect on Steve Hackett's solo on Counting Out Time?

vurnt22 — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 09:10:06 -0800

What is the effect on Steve Hackett's guitar solo on the live version of Counting Out Time? It's definitely weird pitchy and I'm boggled as to what it is...My first thought was a Mutron Biphase, but I after listening to it a few times I don't think so...If any early Genesis/Steve Hackett fans can help, much thanks!

Should I use RSS or avoid it for my concert listing?

twiggy — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 15:01:59 -0800

RSSFilter: I run a website that promotes independent music [link inside] and has become the authoritative source for concert listings and a variety of other info in my local area... How do I best utilize RSS for our shows list without negating the need to come to my site? Or should I not bother? I want to provide a link to the site to give an idea of how robust the shows list is. Most of you don't live in Central Illinois so I hope this doesn't really constitute an "ad" (though I do intend to expand it to Chicago where I live now, and maybe elsewhere). The shows list on my site, openingbands.com, has a very extensive database of concerts and bands, and everything is nicely linked together so that when people enter shows, the band and venue websites/profile information are automatically linked up.

Local newspapers pretty much either "steal" our shows list at this point, or tell us flat out they want to use our site as a reference, and are nice enough to make mention that the listings came from us.

My dilemma is.. well it's a few things:

1) If I create an RSS feed of the concert listings, will it even be used by a lot of people?

2) If it is - how should I craft it so that it's useful, but that people still come read our site? We have magazine style articles and an active community forum and I'd hate to see traffic drop as a result of RSS.

3) How complicated do I want to get with the RSS? I'm not at all new to web programming, but I've avoided learning RSS so I'm totally new to it. I've figured I'll want each show to be an RSS "item" - but do I need venues and bands to be "sub items" or should I just print all the show content in the show item description?

Good upcoming folk music shows in the NYC area?

Dr. Wu — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:34:20 -0800

My mother's husband is a big folk music fan, and his birthday is coming up. I'd like to get them 2 tickets to a good folk music show that takes place somewhere in the NYC area before the end of 2005. I've searched sites like pollstar.com, but the amount of information is just too large; conversely, searching the sites of individual venues takes forever, and I don't have a comprehensive venue list, anyway. Any online resources or reliable venues you can recommend?

Muchas gracias!

P2P client with Magnet Protocol?

horseblind — Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:53:25 -0800

Can you recommend a P2P client that uses the Magnet Protocol? There are many that use the Magnet Protocol (Limewire, Gnutella, Kazaa, etc.) I need a recommendation for one of them. My use is as follows: I collect and share many live concerts. Live Music Archive allows use of clients with Magnet Protocol to download the files. This would be an easy and convenient way to get these files. A secondary use would be to download the odd song that is out of print and I can't seem to find a copy to buy or that I might want to sample and can't find a sample via Amazon etc. And a tertiary use might be to download shows for timeshifted viewing. I do not want something that is loaded with spyware, adware, malware, etc.

What's the best way to buy concert tickets?

rfordh — Sat, 06 Aug 2005 19:35:03 -0800

What's the best way to buy tickets for a high-demand event as soon as they go on sale? Is there a better way than hitting refresh at ticketmaster? Is buying at an outlet better? Since the number of people going is in flux, does quantity matter? Only relevant Askme thread found here.

Rock of ages.

I EAT TAPAS — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 18:02:42 -0800

What makes a concert "all ages," "18+ only" or "21+ only" at a particular venue? I've noticed that different shows at the same venue -- beginning at the same time on different days -- are listed with different age restrictions. The only difference when attending the all-ages shows seems to be that I need to flash an ID and get a wristband if I want to drink. The shows that are listed as 18+ or 21+ aren't (necessarily) raunchy acts. What gives?

get backstage passes

apple scruff — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 18:22:43 -0800

Are there any legit (or not) ways to get backstage passes, or just to get backstage? I don't know if these things could be leveraged at all, but I volunteer at my college's radio station (an indie rock station, of course, but the concerts I'd like to go to aren't indie at all), and I've worked/am working (okay, interning) in PR-which I guess means I should know how to do this in the first place.

I've been able to get stage passes for some smaller concerts through the radio station, but some big acts are coming to town and I'm hoping I can keep on building my backstage pass collection, or at least the number of stories I can tell.

Earplugs for concerts

maledictory — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 23:10:41 -0800

Has anyone had any experience with buying earplugs for use at concerts? I've only started going to live shows recently and I find the inevitable ringing in my ears afterward disconcerting. I know I don't have the greatest hearing as it is, and would like to keep what I've got, so I've been wondering about earplugs. These Etymotic ones claim that they won't muffle the sound so much as reduce the noise level equally across the board. Has anyone used these, or similar, and can speak to their effectiveness?

Oh yes: while I value my hearing, I'm not sure I really want to be 'that guy' wearing the large orange ear muffs in the corner. So style is an (albeit minor) consideration.

Concerts

delmoi — Tue, 10 May 2005 10:33:29 -0800

A friend of mine asked about upcomming concerts in my area. Where can I find local concert listings? Is there any kind of general way to find out about upcomming concerts

A/V File Sharing

RockyChrysler — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:11:55 -0800

Why, in this modern age of file sharing, do some musical artists seem to openly welcome live audio recording/sharing of concerts but appear reluctant, if not actively opposed, to live video recording/sharing of the same events?

Best source for last-minute tickets?

Dreama — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 07:25:56 -0800

What's the best way to get the best possible seats for a concert at the last minute? If I wanted to maximize my chances of snagging the best remaining seat (perhaps even a fairly good seat that's the only solo left in a sea of pairs) in the house, is my best bet the venue box office on the day of the concert, or the dreaded TicketMaster website or an offsite TicketMaster location or is one just as good as the other? Experiences from other last-minuters and insider information from former TM or box office employee types would be very appreciated!