Dallas-Fort Worth music shows go global with live concert feeds

by Sarah Crisman

There used to be a time where live music was relegated to, well, live venues. While the sacred and incomparable experience of being present while music is made is not something you can easily supplement, it's still fun to capture a good show and share it with others. Musicians have been early adopters of video technology since the Ed Sullivan Show, so it should come as no surprise that they're among the first to experiment with online video.

A quick YouTube search of "live music" results in literally millions of videos (I'm not exaggerating, it actually says "millions"). Sites like UStream offer live video feeds equipped with chat and Twitter integration and are packed with singer/songwriters gabbing with fans whilst strumming along on guitars from modest home settings. (At this moment, I'm watching a particularly charming chap sing a Christmas song while he randomly answers the questions about his tour being fired at him from the chat window). But it's not just DIY performances; a few major recording artists have streamed high-quality concerts in their entirety for fans around the world. Now a few local acts are getting in on the game and kicking the web video broadcast up to the professional level.

Friday night, Pegasus content partner My Denton Music will be streaming their second live showcase on UStream -- a task, I will disclose now that I am hosting (thereby doing the least amount of work of anyone involved in this techno-circus). The MDM team has worked for weeks troubleshooting connectivity issues, coordinating equipment, and rallying crew members ready to put on a great event for the club kids -- and it's a great show for anyone out there in the interweb. These guys are putting in massive amounts of work to take the live music experience to people who can't get to the show themselves, be they local ex-pats living on the other side of the world, or the band's relatives. It doesn't matter at this point who is watching, so long as it is made available to anyone who wants to see a great show.

There are, of course, perks and challenges to any creative venture, particularly where distribution is involved. As of this broadcast, viewers can only tune in to the My Denton Music show during the live stream, or wait a few days until it is loaded onto the MDM server and streamed continuously like a box of puppies. This leaves viewership numbers lower than they would be if the show was broken down into video chunks and made available online after the fact. It's also very difficult to get viewers to commit to one particular date and time to watch a show. We are a spoiled lot, and we want our web video when we want it. Virality is key in web video, we want to be able to share the best bits of that show with our circles online; that's how the story goes.

On the other hand, if you just can't make it out for the evening -- maybe you've got a sick puppy you can't leave behind -- live streams of local shows can keep you up to-the-minute on what you're missing out on. It could be quite handy when deciding to leave the house if you don't feel like being out for the whole night. Or, you can watch your nephew's band rip a whole in the internet sky with his new band.

What it really comes down to is transforming local music into a global market; the logistics of which will all be ironed out over time. In the meantime, the music will keep playing and it's going to find it's way to you one way or the other.