It’s been a huge year for live music, so let’s take a tour.
concerts
Posted inEditor's Pick
Last Resort, Part 1: Let’s Go to Angola
“His father, a broke music promoter, had convinced him they could turn their lives around by arranging a complicated but lucrative hip-hop concert on New Year’s Eve in Angola. It was more complicated than they’d imagined.” The first installment of a three-part story, in partnership with Epic Magazine.
Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Highlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
What Do We Do Without Live Music?
Those of us who live for musical performances must find other ways to temporarily live without them.
Posted inNonfiction
The Revolution…Without Prince
Hoping to reconnect to their love for the iconic musician, Kevin Sampsell and an old girlfriend go to hear his best known band play without him.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
How We Got There from Here
Anna Armstrong recalls a road trip to escape her grief-stricken home — dragging her 13-year-old brother to see R.E.M.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster
Ken Lowson, the most infamous and successful ticket scalper of all time, used bots to buy millions of tickets. Now, several years later, he’s ready to tell his story—and fix the system.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium Helped Launch Led Zeppelin
Whether by accident or design, [the Fillmore Auditorium’s Bill Graham] has succeeded in launching most of the international pop groups whose claim to fame is musical rather than fashionable. Cream, Jimi Hendrix and the Who all owe a great deal to his fanatical championship. And at the beginning of January, he promoted a new group […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Old Music Industry: ‘A System Specifically Engineered to Waste the Band’s Money’
During the 90s there was something of an arms race to see who could write the biggest deal. That is, the deal with the most money being spent on the band’s behalf. In a singularly painless contest the money would either be paid to the band as a royalty, which would take that money out […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Trey Anastasio and the No-Analyzing Rule
BLVR: I’ve heard you guys had a no-analyzing rule for a while. You wouldn’t talk to each other about how the show went. TA: That was for about a year. You come offstage and no one can say anything. At all. At all. Because everyone’s got their own perspective. BLVR: Someone might think it’s a […]