Comments on: Find out when your fave bands are playing your town.

Find out when your fave bands are playing your town.

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:21:19 -0800

iConcertCal - The most awesomest iTunes plugin ever--tells you when bands you have MP3s for are playing your town. {via an email from this dude.}

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:24:27 -0800

Wow, that seems totally awesome. It scares me a bit, but that's just my inner crypto-luddite. But, now I'm guaranteed to not miss Dock Boggs when he comes to play Baltimore.

By: Sk4n

Sk4n — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:25:29 -0800

Awesome. *Waits for notification of next Beatles concert at Madison Square Garden*

By: Captaintripps

Captaintripps — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:31:08 -0800

Crashed my iTunes after I set it to New York and now I can't open it again. Thanks!

By: thoughtless

thoughtless — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:36:21 -0800

Nice idea. I'll keep a look-out for when it's extended to search gigs in the UK, as well as the USA ... I'm always hungry for more gigs to feel too tired to go to.

By: fatllama

fatllama — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:36:41 -0800

This is good.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:36:42 -0800

Captain, when I installed it it had the option to uninstall. Try that. Worked flawlessly for me with Toronto as the setting and +40k mp3s. We don't have as many venues as you do, though.

By: Captaintripps

Captaintripps — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:44:46 -0800

I got it working again. Looks cool!

By: itchylick

itchylick — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:44:50 -0800

I don't have much of a music library on my computer here at work, so didn't get many results. I did, however, find this nifty tidbit in the FAQ ... "Can iConcertCal find bands that aren't in my library?" Yes.

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:45:56 -0800

Awesome. I just emailed this to my concert-going amigos. Thanks!

By: zazerr

zazerr — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:49:26 -0800

Awesome... Except it kept crashing itunes. Uninstalled it, everything works fine. I messed with the visualization settings, nothing helped. Thoughts? Changing the location didn't help.

By: 2sheets

2sheets — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:49:27 -0800

iFilter -AWESOME

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:49:28 -0800

and PS while the FAQ says that only US cities are supported, Calgary seems to work so I'm guessing Canada has been annexed and I just haven't heard about it yet.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:49:29 -0800

Awesome in principle, but.... Europe!

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:52:07 -0800

while the FAQ says that only US cities are supported Maybe this means by IP? I manually punched in Toronto and it worked fine for me. Europeans, try punching in you city manually.

By: jourman2

jourman2 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:52:55 -0800

Awesome! <--- runs to empty bank account

By: theemperorhasnoclotheson

theemperorhasnoclotheson — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:55:07 -0800

Amsterdam, the Netherlands is working fine ! Bruce Cockburn, Genesis, Sting, Bob Dylan...

By: interrobang

interrobang — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:57:21 -0800

Apparently, no music is coming to Lawrence, Kansas, and no music has ever been here. Also, no music will ever come to Lawrence. It sure sucks to live here.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 08:59:35 -0800

Amsterdam, the Netherlands is working fine ! For real? I can't install it right now (I'm at work), but I thought I wouldn't bother anyway because the FAQ says it doesn't work outside the US.

By: evilangela

evilangela — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:07:13 -0800

For those outside of the US, note that the social music site Last.fm now has an event tracker built into the site, and it will keep you updated of events in your area based on what you listen to - sort of doing the same thing. With full worldwide support - of coruse, all the events are human entered, but still... (I would have missed The Crüxshadows here in Seattle had it not been for Last.fm, and been very very upset about it...) I still might give this a try, see how the two compare...

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:10:53 -0800

For those outside of the US, note that the social music site Last.fm now has an event tracker [...] - sort of doing the same thing. Whoa, speaking of Luddites. I learn a lot today. Thanks evilangela!

By: null terminated

null terminated — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:10:59 -0800

Works great here on windows.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:16:07 -0800

Wow, the Last.FM event planner is really useful. Does anyone know of a way to RSSify it?

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:17:15 -0800

It's a little glitchy with iTunes 7 Mac, at least for me. Calendar doesn't take up the whole window, I can't see half of the entries, and the scrollbar doesn't work. Weird.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:19:16 -0800

SansPoint, your visualizer is not set to fullscreen. It's mentioned in the faq. I'm on Mac, latest iTunes and it works for me fine.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:23:06 -0800

Wow, the Last.FM event planner is really useful. Doesn't seem as thorough to me. I'm heading out now to buy tickets to Hella and Psychic Paramount (2 diff gigs) because of the plugin--neither is listed in Last.Fm's events, for me, though they do list some other ones I already have tickets to.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:26:52 -0800

Are those bands in high rotation on your profile though, dobbs? And have you selected a large enough distance from your hometown, as well as ticked the "recommended" box? Just checking.

By: itchylick

itchylick — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:27:08 -0800

No luck with adding bands manually to the txt file. I intentionally added bands that are in the DC area this month and not one showed up. So I'm not sure if it's a database issue, or it's just not finding the manual text file. Damn you metafilter and your irresistible distractions.

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:29:12 -0800

There's also Sonicliving, which syncs with iTunes, last.fm, and Pandora.

By: Stynxno

Stynxno — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:31:56 -0800

this is awesome.

By: kolophon

kolophon — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:41:53 -0800

Berlin, Germany: City and/or state could not be found. meh.

By: JPowers

JPowers — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:45:15 -0800

This totally screws with Front Row.

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:49:25 -0800

itchylick, It seems that the file is the problem for me, not the database. Wolfmother is listed in Calgary and it showed up due to the album being in my library. I nuked it from the library, and it didn't show up (obviously). I then added it to the .txt file and it still didn't show up. Tried several times including closing and re-opening iTunes. I'm on a PC, FWIW. It seems buggy as far as the refresh process, too.

By: afx114

afx114 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:51:56 -0800

Looks pretty awesome, but it's not showing any shows for San Diego. Are all 80+GB of my bands really not playing any gigs in San Diego, or is there just not any data for it?

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:56:35 -0800

...er I should say not just the database, as there most certainly are bands playing that aren't in it.

By: jimmythefish

jimmythefish — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:58:34 -0800

...er not just the file. Gah.

By: imperium

imperium — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:08:57 -0800

For those of you non-US residents who are also Mac users, I recommend onTour, a widget that does much of this, except for the quasi-iCal interface. Oh, and it's free.

By: wemayfreeze

wemayfreeze — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:09:49 -0800

Seconding SonicLiving. Works wonders for me and also all the other cool people?

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:11:00 -0800

Nice idea. I'll keep a look-out for when it's extended to search gigs in the UK London, UK works. Other UK cities seem to confuse it.

By: itchylick

itchylick — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:25:25 -0800

Thanks jimmythefish, I didn't think to try that. Hopefully the kinks will get worked out. This is very handy. "*Waits for notification of next Beatles concert at Madison Square Garden*" I believe the left arrow will take you back in time.

By: lekvar

lekvar — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 10:54:36 -0800

What a fantastic idea. This gets my Nobel nomination.

By: jettloe

jettloe — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:02:29 -0800

Didn't work at first till put in the city manually = Belfast, then for State = UK. And hey, Dolly Parton's coming to town! Didn't even know I had any Dolly Parton...but now feel the need to go the show = fantastic!

By: troymccluresf

troymccluresf — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:08:53 -0800

I always wonder what the info source is for services like this. Is it showing only (say) ClearChannel bands, or is it scouring Myspace and last.fm as well as Sony and WB?

By: evilangela

evilangela — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:42:06 -0800

It's definitely not using Last.fm as a source - I installed it and had all of two shows listed in my area (near Seattle). Last.fm shows me a LOT more than that.

By: felix betachat

felix betachat — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:51:43 -0800

Alas, no love for Jerusalem. I can, however, use it to see all the shows I'm missing in Chicago: Richard Thompson? Richard Buckner? Alejandro Escovedo? WAR? THE POGUES?? MERLE & WILLIE??? most.depressing.plugin.EVAR

By: luriete

luriete — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 12:06:07 -0800

It does crash many Mac itunes copies (on a G5 tower and a G4 powerbook, at least, all updated to the newest version). However, you can remove it from the itunes plugins folder and then you are good to go.

By: Freen

Freen — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 12:59:04 -0800

not bad. Though, i'd have to say, I'd prefer it if it exported to iCal. As a visualizer, it's not all that handy.

By: Freen

Freen — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 12:59:26 -0800

not the most stable, either.

By: dpx.mfx

dpx.mfx — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:25:14 -0800

I keep getting an error that it can't find my library. I can't seem to manually find the file it wants. Bummer.

By: LionIndex

LionIndex — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:46:18 -0800

Looks pretty awesome, but it's not showing any shows for San Diego. Are all 80+GB of my bands really not playing any gigs in San Diego, or is there just not any data for it? Is it possible that it gets its data from ticketmaster or something similar, meaning that shows at places like the Casbah don't register?

By: papercake

papercake — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:11:57 -0800

My world has just been rocked. I didn't realize Tim Easton was playing NYC in two weeks! Thanks, iConcertCal! You're the BEST! /cheesy commercial voice

By: grouse

grouse — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 14:24:44 -0800

This is amazingly cool. The only downside is that it has created an urge to spend a lot of time and money I don't have going to London to see some of the 44 upcoming shows. At least I have tickets to one.

By: emelenjr

emelenjr — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 16:12:46 -0800

It seems to be looking for concert dates at Pollstar, judging by what happens when you click on band names or venue names in the calendar. (Though for some venues, it takes you to the venue's web site.) Entering Richmond, VA brings up listings for D.C. and Charlottesville as well, which is awesome (and which is also commentary on Richmond's pitiful concert scene.) Apple should throw some money at these guys and roll this plugin into a future iTunes release, with iCal integration.

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 07:20:34 -0800

Clearly something's broken, it's telling me The Who, Little Feat, Foreigner, The Doobie Brothers, America, and The Smithereens are playing in NYC. Do I have my Mac's clock set for 1983 or something?

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 07:28:01 -0800

emelenjr, I've always assumed that Apple had some deal with the major labels not to disintermediate them by facilitating direct user -> artist interaction in any way - otherwise this is just a no-brainer, as is fan clubs in iTunes &c.

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:13:06 -0800

This is a killer. **** 4 Stars

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:15:12 -0800

errr.....soon as they work out ALL the bugs.

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:48:37 -0800

This is so depressing. The *one* show that showed up for my 30GB of music I already have tickets for.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 08:55:53 -0800

Woot. I just got tix for Tokyo Police Club (Arcade Fire is sold out though). Thanks Last.FM, and thanks evilangela!

By: squirrel

squirrel — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:49:01 -0800

Very cool indeed.