The age of live music
As soon as my group of friends growing up got driving licenses, our whole lives changed. Electronic music had been our thing for a few years - we spent our time recording radio sets from the great DJs of the time, and buying their mixtapes and CDs.
But with access to transport, we suddenly had the opportunity to experience their music in a whole new way - live. Armed with fake IDs (straight forward at that time, when no form of photo-identification existed), we would happily driving 4 hours across country to see our favorite DJs, wherever they were playing. It was high risk/reward - if your fake ID didn’t get you in, you sat in the car on your own all night.
So from way back we have always loved experiencing live music, but over the last 10 years the trend for live events as part of an artist’s repertoire has been declining. Multi-format recorded music, coupled with time-pressured multi-album recording deals, had kept artists in the studio and out of venues and clubs. You would wait a year or more to see your favorite acts playing even remotely close to your home town.
We have all seen what has happened to recorded music in the last few years - earnings from recorded music have declined for artists and labels alike (primarily Apple’s breakdown of the album as a format). Most folks in the music industry have been quick to grumble about this decline, but for music fans, the upshot has been a huge increase in the volume of music events. I think we are at the beginning of a golden age for the live format.
The trend started in Europe 5 years ago with a huge increase in the popularity of music festivals, and has been stimulated further by the more recent popularity of 360 recording deals between artists and labels (or in some cases, ticket agents). Now, everyone is at it - most bands tour 3-4 times per year, supporting the release of a single album. That means more shows, more often, in a more diverse range of venues. As the chart above shows, last year, revenue from live music in the UK exceeded that from recorded music for the first time.
For live music fans, certainly those in my generation, this is unprecedented. We should all be out embracing as much live music as we can. You can bet that the cycle will turn again.
