PlayedLastNight.com 5

I stumbled upon PlayedLastNight.com after missing out on tickets to an upcoming Iron & Wine show (2 actually, wtf San Francisco... who plans things months in advance here, certainly not me).

I was instantly impressed. They offer full recordings of live shows by artists for $9.99 (I think it's an extra $3 if you want FLAC files).

I was really excited to find a recording of a concert I attended back in September, and purchased it immediately. They send you a link to download the files instantly upon completion of the transaction, and I had the full concert download in about 20 minutes. The mp3 bitrate is 160kbps, and if you're more of an audiophile than me, the availability of FLAC files should please you. The recording quality is stellar, and it was well worth the price. The first two songs in the set had some extremely minor audio problems, so they threw in 2 extra tracks from the show the following evening (the same songs) as part of the download. This kind of attention to detail impressed me.

Prior to purchase, they offer 30 second samples of the songs from each show and a brief writeup of the event to help you pick which concerts to download. It might benefit them to call out a particular show as especially representative and outstanding on the tour, or perhaps to compile a collection of the best performances of ALL the songs played throughout the tour and offer those as a single download. I'd pay double for the latter.

PlayedLastNight.com is basically like having an awesome bootlegger friend with professional recording equipment and an in with the band. The only problem with is that there are only two artists currently participating: Iron & Wine and The Swell Season. Fortunately I like both of them, but I look forward to more groups being added as the site gets more successful. It's a real treat to be able to see a concert and then have an audio recording to remind you of the evening. Similarly, when shows sell out, it's great that you don't completely miss out on something special (and the artist can benefit from fans that didn't fit in the venue... everyone wins!)