Back in 1997, my band ‘reel’ did a show “Live” to the internet. In 1997, this was no easy task. There was no UStream or any other service like it, and our connection was dial up.
What we did was, using a logitech quickcam, we took a picture of the live performance every 15 seconds, then uploaded the pic to our webserver and ran a javascript to refresh the image every 25 seconds. For the audio, I had to contact a company in California to let us use their RealMedia streaming server. This fed the webpage with the audiofeed that the user first had to download real player.
Here is our original blog post about the event:
February 14th: Johnny’s Rocket Room. Our live show on this web site. This show had a couple of new events for the band. The first being the debut of the newest song to the reel live set, “I hold crush” and the second being reel’s first live show on the internet. We would like to thank the following people who helped make the show happen: Nick Linedecker at Kern Internet Services in Bakersfied, CA, Copyland Systems for supplying the hardware to make the show be broadcast. We would also like to thank the following people who helped to promote the show: Chris Gordon and Karen Murray from 103.1fm “The Hawk” for having us the program “London Live”. Janice Zolf at BBS Communications for the spot on Entertainment Desk on TV-London. And last we would like to thank all the people who came out to the show and tuned in on the internet.
The blog post on WayBack Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/19970422164648/www.execulink.com/~reel/reelnews.htm
Here is the CFPL news coverage:
Sometimes, it is nice to walk down memory lane….
Friday, January 15th, I had the great pleasure to attend the CD release of “no ghostless place” by Raised by Swans. I have been a very big fan of the band since hearing “Violet Light” on the CBC Radio3 Podcast 4 years ago. Their first CD “Codes & Secret Longing” has been a favourite of mine since the day it was purchased, and sits in my list of top albums of all time.
I have been eagerly awaiting to hear some new material, and after 4 years, the band has release their new CD. I ordered mine via online pre-order hoping to receive my copy the day before the show. I can review this album with one word: AMAZING. The new CD is on par if not better than Codes & Secret longing. I cannot recommend enough to anybody reading this post, leave my site right now, and click on this link to buy this album right now!
I almost didn’t make the show as our babysitter fell through at the last minute, but my wife, Tracey decided to stay home with the kids so I wouldn’t miss the show.
Moving on now to my review of the show. If it has not been made clear, I am a fan. The band played a solid 14 song set, that featured heavily the new material of “No Ghostless Place”. The new material played very well live, some songs like “Hail of Arrows” and “Secret Garden /S.C” sounding more rounded out and driven than the recorded versions.
Sound at Call the Office has always been a problem in my opinion, and there were times where the vocals did get lost in the wall of distorted mud that is Call the Office’s sound system. According to interviews with the band, they are about to embark on a coast to coast tour of Canada, so it was nice to have them playing in front of a hometown audience before embarking cross country.
I managed to take quite a few pictures of the performance, you can view the entire set on my flickr page here.
Setlist from the show: (Show Highlights bolded)
We Were Never Young
Hail of Arrows
Relentless
Easier
Capable of Cruelty
Old Fires
Longer Shadows, Shorter Days
Sandcastles
The Waitings Over
Still Inside You
There’s Hope Yet
How do These Hearts Unfold
Violet Light
Band Website: www.raisedbyswans.com
Good show, OK sound, drunk people. Some visuals/audio from my phone:
Blow at High Dough
Set List:
New Orleans Is Sinking
The Depression Suite
Poets
Ahead By A Century
Fireworks
Morning Moon
Courage
Coffee Girl@
Wheat Kings@
Scared@
At the 100th Meridian
Springtime In Vienna
The Last Recluse
In View
Bobcaygeon
Family Band
My Music At Work
Blow At High Dough
Encore
Love Is A First
Grace, Too
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