alt Hacker NewsRare concert recordings are landing on the Internet Archive
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Source article is more enjoyable http://blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/10/from-early-nirvana-to...
Previous discussion: "Volunteers turn a fan's recordings of 10K concerts into an online treasure trove" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47687443 8-apr-2026 76 comments
This is one of the best things I've read about in a bit. It wasn't uncommon to buy marked-up (overpriced) bootlegs of live performances on CDs in the 90s. You never knew in advance if it'd be a quality recording or total garbage. We've lost that.
I still love when one of my live bootlegs of Faith No More comes on with them doing (sometimes mocking) parodies of popular music (their rendition of Nothing Compares to You by Sinead OConnor has been in my head as I type this). When I got to see them in 2010 (I think) they were true to form and played a bunch of short (reinterpretations) covers and it was one of the best aspects of the show. And I still have a Mr Bungle bootleg with them covering Existential Blues by Tom "T-Bone" Stankus (I always thought it was Doctor Demento's Wizard of Oz until just now when I looked it up).
How would you even know about these awesome gems without bootlegs or access to see all their live shows? YouTube is less likely to capture an entire show than a clip, whereas the bootlegs were typically the full show. There are probably areas of the internet where this stuff gets shared and traded, but having it in my local music shop meant everyone had access without requiring special knowledge.
I just did two searches, one Google and one Kagi, and neither turned up the FNM Nothing Compares to You. Who knows how many copies of it exist in the world. If my music library gets nuked, who will even know about it? I think I'm gonna start uploading my bootleg recordings of live shows to IA.
It's funny to think how much effort was put into preventing bootlegging, when now everything is being recorded all the time.
The few bands that didn't care or even encouraged it reaped the benefits. I was a huge Ween fan in the 90s and bootlegged a show of theirs myself. Camera and recording devices were allowed and the result was a tremendous amount of live content available online. For some bands this might not matter, but they rarely played the same set list twice and often played songs differently from show to show. In the early internet days, there was more ween content online than you could ever hope to listen to.
I remember back in the early 90s I think on the internet when it was only accessible via my university, reading on a newsgroup about how people traded bootlegs from various concerts. People would mail cassette tapes around the country and would use double cassette recorders to make a copy of their bootleg and mail it back to people. It was definitely a different time
2100 entries over 40 years is pretty much a show a week. Talk about artefacts of a life well lived.
I can't more highly recommend this book for getting into the headspace of the era a lot of these recordings.
11 chapters about DIY / Punk / Hardcore bands of the 1980s underground scene.
(The audiobook in particular is fun as it's read by musicians influenced by the artists in their respective chapters)
I enjoyed "live albums" a lot growing up.
The Mark, Tom, and Travis show was always a blast to listen to with my friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark,_Tom,_and_Travis_Show...!)
Wow, this is very cool, I have been looking for the Phish show at Lounge Ax from November 1990 (opening for Alex Chilton of Big Star) for ages. It was first time I saw them live, and next time they came around they graduated from a 300 person club to a 3000 person ballroom!
This brings back some memories. I often recorded live gigs from the radio. It was the best way to discover new bands and share them with friends at parties. The Internet Archive keeps on giving, what a great project.
This is one of those cases where preservation clashes with ownership. Without this, a lot of those recordings would just disappear.But at the same time, they’re not really his to share. Hard to draw a clean line here.
Some great commentary in here. I agree all games have loops, so the authors stance against them comes off as a bit confusing.
I think what the author is getting at is when loops are obviosuly "felt" and feel canned.
Strategy games typically have obvious, tight loops. Turn-based games are loop-driven by definition. And so on. This is fine.
But single player games, single player RPGs, etc, can suffer if the loop is really tight and obvious. Early on, you feel "oh, i get it. it's going to be 40 more hours of THIS". Novelty wears off if the loop doesn't really change or evolve. Whereas in turn-based games or strategy-based games, the loop itself IS the game because it progresses as the game state evolves. Nobody complains about the game-loop of chess because that's the game - if you don't like the loop, you don't like the game and the convo ends there, is what is is. But a single-player adventure game, for example, has to do a lot of other stuff right to keep a player incentivized to keep playing the "loop".
Best example would be BG3, where theres clearly a loop - but its massive. Theres a LOT of variation and events between leaving camp and returning later that night. So each "loop" rarely feels samey.
I think the issue is when gameplay loops become transparent and predictable rather than maintaining novelty. A LOT of games suffer for this - the type of game you agree is good, you enjoy it, but put it down after 12 hours for some reason. It's bc of this. The human brain seeks novelty.
Tangent idea: musicians should record every live show, and then put it on a streaming service, only for people who bought tickets to the show (possibly for an extra small fee on the ticket). Extra revenue for the artist, and a cool benefit for the fan (the liver performance you attended).
For those interested, Relisten is another repository of live concert recordings. It skews heavily towards improvisational music, ie jambands, but there's some indie rock on there as well.
A discussion from six days ago (same story, different source):
https://apnews.com/article/aadam-jacobs-collection-concerts-...
I have my worries about Internet Archive more and more recently.
I'm wondering though is there any decentralized IPFS or P2P Archive of the entire archive that can be helped with for preservation ?
https://www.wired.com/story/the-internets-most-powerful-arch...
Not to demerit the recording, but I felt more nostalgic for the last sentence of the article "Sometimes, the internet is good" than for the musics itself.
Some stuff I snagged the other day when it was posted:
Elf Power Live at Lounge Ax 1998-04-25 https://archive.org/details/ajc01382_elf-power-1998-04-25
Fountains Of Wayne Live at The Vic Theatre 2003-11-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc00691_fountains-of-wayne-2003...
Fugazi Live at State Theatre on 1991-08-06 https://archive.org/details/ajc02237_fugazi1991-08-06.ajcpro...
Godspeed You! Black Emperor Live at Lounge Ax on 1999-09-16 https://archive.org/details/ajc02676_gybe1999-09-16.ajcproje...
Iron & Wine Live at Abbey Pub 2004-07-02 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc01329_iron-wine-2004-07-02.la...
Josh Rouse Live at Schubas Tavern 2004-04-26 https://archive.org/details/ajc01208_josh-rouse-2004-04-26
Midnight Oil Live at Cabaret Metro 1988-04-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc02792_midnightoil1988-04-30
Neutral Milk Hotel Live at Lounge Ax 1997-05-01 https://archive.org/details/ajc00789_neutralmilkhotel1997-05...
OK Go Live at Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival 2003-05-31 https://archive.org/details/ajc01120_ok-go-2003-05-31
Pavement Live at Lounge Ax 1992-06-12 https://archive.org/details/ajc00811_pavement1992-06-12
Polyphonic Spree Live at Metro on 2003-10-07 https://archive.org/details/ajc01050-PolyphonicSpree2003-10-...
Ratatat Live at Abbey Pub 2004-05-14 https://archive.org/details/ajc01220_ratatat-2004-05-14
Rogue Wave Live at Schubas Tavern on 2005-01-30 https://archive.org/details/ajc01227_roguewave2005-01-30.ajc...
Super Furry Animals Live at Abbey Pub 2002-04-19 https://archive.org/details/ajc01144_super-furry-animals-200...
The Decemberists Live at Intonation Fest on 2005-07-17 https://archive.org/details/ajc00642_decemberists2005-07-17....
The Folk Implosion Live at Schubas Tavern 2000-02-29 (Late show) https://archive.org/details/ajc00963_folk_implosion_2000-02-...
The Shins Live at Schubas Tavern 2001-08-24 https://archive.org/details/ajc01131_the_shins_2001-08-24
Many software companies in the 80s were quiet about their software being bootlegged because it turned out to be great for building a critical mass of users of their software.
Really interesting to see how far this story has spread, I saw it in my Chicago groups first and now it’s popped up in outlets all over the world. I guess it shows how nostalgic we are for an earlier time, both in music and internet culture.
> he has to use anachronistic cassette decks to play the tapes, which get converted into digital files
Anachronistic?
It seems like a complicated way of saying "the tapes were digitized".
So how long till your just greeted with a page telling you the archive has it, but you can't download it because of DMCA.
I'm reading this article and Weird Al's Don't Download this Song pops up on random play. Did Microsoft add Copilot to Media Player or something?
"Don't download this song (Don't do it, no, no) Even Lars Ulrich knows it's wrong (You can just ask him)"
I have a friend that used to record a lot of concerts... a surprising number of bands would even let him plug into the panel to do so. IIRC, mostly using a digital tape recorder later transferred to computer over firewire in the late 90s and 00s.
if you really want to hear a live performance, there seems to be a nudge from amazon lately.
if your into providing music, dont default to a live version.
some live recordings are good, you can actually hear the music, and the crowd is only noticble between songs.
im thinking that an online archive of live concerts will only steepen this trend.
im just going back to all my mp3 media more often nowadays [bcz i actually bought it mp3 versions, decades ago when you still could]
that way i can hear music, instead of a bunch of people screaming over the music.
now heres somthing else, maybe you remember that concert, you were there, you love hearing you and friends at the concert, maybe people who no longer live are still there. jimmy dean, rock on,
Breathlessly cannot wait to share some of this stuff with my people ...
This is what the internet is for.
THANK YOU.
On the afternoon of October 6 1989 I attended a Fugazi concert in Cambridge Mass, probably one of the best live shows I've ever seen.
Last year I casually searched YouTube for some shows I had attended in my youth and this one popped up, recorded by a high school classmate who happened to be there, filming from the side from a balcony or rope rack used by stagehands.
I then went to the Fugazi Live Series archive to see if there was better quality audio (the band recorded most of their shows from the 1980s through the early 2000s, and posted almost all of them in the archive). That October 1989 concert was in the database (https://dischord.com/fugazi_live_series/cambridge-ma-usa-100...), and there were some comments by others who attended, but there was no supporting media other than a single photograph.
So I emailed the address on the website:
Hi, regarding this show someone created a video recording from which the audio can probably be extracted. It's on YouTube here:
https://youtu.be/0XS3QD2cddo?si=1TM9PglNv-Rlr98w
I was at the show but not near the stage. It was a memorable show for me and many others according to the description on the official Fugazi archive.
The uploader of the video (my high school classmate, who I believe was a member of the FUs at some point) says:
"In 1989, I went to the First Congregational Church, In Harvard Sq. Cambridge Massachusetts, in hopes of getting into this Fugazi show. Unfortunately, the promoter pre-sold the tickets to people he knew. Thus there was a large crowd of people trying to get in without tickets. Fortunately for me, I had been friends with him before, and he let my girlfriend and I in. Once inside, I asked Guy if I could videotape the show, he told me to go ahead... as long as I sent a copy of the video to Dischord Records... I never did... I just wasn't responsible enough in those days to bother... anyway, here it is, the full show, in all it's faded and low resolution glory... so go ahead, enjoy, and share."
To my surprise, Ian MacKaye responded! While he could extract the audio from YouTube, he wanted to know if I could get in touch with my high school classmate who might still have the original tapes which would have better quality. I did, and my classmate actually got the tapes (from his old girlfriend, who had them in a box in her basement) and shipped them off to Ian. At some point they will be properly digitized and put on the Fugazi archive.
I had a long interview with Ian about archiving which I hope to post on my blog later this summer. To make a long story short, he's amassed a huge collection of materials from Fugazi and his previous bands (most notably Minor Threat) which includes concert audio, studio audio, video, photos, concert flyers, and every piece of fan mail they received at Dischord House from the 1980s to the present day.
He's very systematic about organizing the archives, thanks to interactions with trained archivists including several working for the federal government (he's based in Washington DC).
I used to record concerts I went to with a minidisc player and a small battery powered mic.. I have Beck, Radiohead, Dj Shadow, Kid koala, Q-bert. Defo fun to listen back to, especially the bullshit my friends and I were saying.
Also there was a shop in Temple Bar Dublin that seemed to specialise in selling bootlegs. They were really expensive, but really good, clearly taken from the sound desk.
Yeah but you know DMCA may intervene to delete it if they are copyrighted (as it happened with many media content before)
There are so many concert recordings of awesome performances that sound like crap because they are audience tapes.
Often before a performance recorded music is played and captured in the audience recordings.
Would it be possible to train a model on an archive of these concert audience recordings of studio recordings paired with the original studio recordings to develop a system to “clean up” audience recordings?
>listen now
These are dangerous words to use for an archive site for material still protected under copyright.
I am an active and enthusiastic recordist and have decades of stuff I've accumulated over the years.
One of the concerts I captured in the 90's, lives on as a bootleg which I often see around the scene of this one particularly great live electronic dance band, whose punters have created true value out of the hour and a half of live concert input I managed to record, standing right there front stage and center, with the band looking right at me.
It was a hilarious experience - I expected to get booted out pretty fast, so I held my ground as still as I could, DAT-tape rolling by, shotgun mike held in front of me like it was just normal, as if I belonged there.
The lead singer caught my eye and gave me a wide grin. I survived the concert, it was awesome, but boy was I relieved to have made it home with that DAT - which I of course, proceeded to digitize with my brand new spdf/io ..
The next year the band (who are big and famous, btw) were in the same city and I happened to be around, I got invited backstage to meet the band, participate in a bit of nerdery regarding their live setup and gear and so on, and talk about that recording I'd made.
I'd put it out as a pure bootleg, no questions asked.
Turns out they'd heard it and enjoyed it and came to appreciate the nature of their bootleggers, as avid fans who gave the band themselves something extra to think about in what was then, a burgeoning digital/online universe about to explode.
So, seeing it around, almost 30 years now .. here and there, again and again .. is quite hilarious. Youtube often recommends it to me in my playlist, its just there.
And at a certain spot in the recording, I tell my mate to stop standing so close to me (he was blocking the shottie), and prepare for my ass getting bounced - which never happened, thankfully.
So yeah, I just wanna say, if you personally have the desire to be a recordist, and have a pure purpose in it, I'd say just freakin' go for it.
Record All The Things.
Its good for the Artists, yo. And also their fans. (Its how we get rid of the managers, cough cough..)