But it’s not an entirely hopeless situation. Although we can’t travel back in time and witness the musical revolutions, we can momentarily relive those moments in our mind by listening to the greatest past artists in concerts. No, you don’t have to pay anything; just log on to Wolfgang’s Concert Vault.

Wolfgang is an amazing rock website that sells numerous rock music related items (vintage rock posters, tickets, backstage memorabilia etc), publishes Crawdaddy which is a magazine dedicated to rock music, offers a comprehensive schedule of artists now on tour, and lets users listen to live concert recordings from the past… for free!

Our focus obviously will be this last function of Wolfgang.

By registering for a free account, you can enter the Concert Vault and browse over 3000 concert recordings! These recordings are of the greatest artists that music has seen. Over the years, these recordings have been recorded and re-mastered by the people. And now the Concert Vault has them for the public.

Let me walk you through the Concert Vault and show you how amazingly simple it is.

The Featured Concert can be seen in the main sliding menu; these are recommended by Wolfgang and are definitely worth listening to. The Downloads page lists all recordings and lets the user download them either for free or by paying money (some recordings are free, others aren’t). There’s also a radio section where users can listen to the radio online and listen to amazing songs, Browsing for concerts can be done directly via the homepage of the Concert Vault. The fields on the left let you filter your options till you’ve narrowed down your results to whatever you desire.

As for searching for a particular artist: the top of Wolfgang’s page has a text entering field. Enter the name of the artist/band whose concert you want to listen to. Before clicking on ‘Search’ do make sure you’ve chosen the Concert Vault option instead of WolfGang, like so:

I searched for one my favorite old bands, The Police. The top section of our results page shows us the discography of the bands we’ve searched for. The field right under the discography lists valuable memorabilia related to the band; this memorabilia is for sale and can be purchased from Wolfgang. The final field is a list of the available concerts:

As you can see, the website not only has recordings of concerts, but also of interviews. The venues of the concerts are mentioned when available. Plus, the length of every recording is also provided. If the recording is obtainable (downloadable), the last field (empty in this case) will have one of two tags: Buy or Free. The free ones can be downloaded without paying anything; the other ones however need a payment in order to be downloaded.

Downloadable or not, you can always listen to the recording for free by clicking on the ‘Play’ button in the very beginning of each concert listing. I clicked on the first ‘Play’ button:

Right after a short summary of the concert, the track listing is provided. Good descriptive summaries add to the excitement and help you put yourself in the concert. To listen to a song, simply click on it. I clicked on ‘Truth Hits Everybody:’

Just Like in the screenshot above, a small online media player opens up which has a playlist made of all the songs of the concert you’ve chosen. When it starts, the song you clicked on starts playing. You can now listen to all the songs of that particular concert from within this online player.

And that’s it!

If you’re wondering whether this website is offering these recordings for free by cheating the artists out of the money they deserve for their performances, then listen to what Wolfgang has to say: “The Concert Vault is fully licensed by BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, and we pay these performance rights organizations every time you listen to a concert. The license fees make their way back to the performers that made the music. Download revenues are also shared with performers and publishers as appropriate. One of our top priorities will always be to make sure that the artists are compensated for their performances.”

Wolfgang’s Concert Vault is an amazing web service immortalizing the best performances of the best artists who ever lived. Awesome job, Concert Vault!

Check out Concert Vault @ www.wolfgangsvault.com/concerts

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• SongKick: Check Entire Concert History Of Favorite Bands
• HearWhere: Find Concerts In Your Area
• GigZee: Find Local Live Music
• GigFreaks: Find Live Concerts in Your Area
• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area

Features:

• Find lowest prices for sports and music concert tickets.
• Get price forecasts and decide if you should buy or wait.
• Subscribe to email alerts to get alerted when the tickets are cheapest.
• Search tickets by artist, venue, team or city.

Check out SeatGeek @ www.seatgeek.com (via TechCrunch) (By Abhijeet from Jeet Blog)

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The site lets you search for event tickets by venue, event name or your zip code. Users can see the availability of tickets for different sections and rows, compare prices from different brokers (TicketsNow, StubHub, TicketNetworks) and if necessary book tickets online.

Features:

• See the exact location of your ticket seat at the venue and see the availability of tickets for different sections and rows.
• Aggregates tickets info (availability, prices) from major online ticket brokers including TicketsNow, StubHub and TicketNetworks.
• View calendar of events for different performers (bands, sports teams) and venues.
• Free, no registration or email required.
• Currently US only.
• Similar sites: TicketsFTW, RoosterFly and TicketsStumbler.

Check out SeatQuest @ www.seatquest.com

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Sign up to share your own concert experiences and meet other people who attended the same concerts as you did and connect with fellow music fans. Add related photos and videos, add events and track the upcoming gigs of your favorite artists.

Features:

• Concert database of more than 1 million past and upcoming concerts.
• Browse artist’s concert history by dates, by venue and by city.
• Check out upcoming events in your city.
• Sign up to share your own concert going history, meet people who attended the same concerts and connect with fellow fans.
• Track upcoming gigs of your favorite artists, add related photos, posters and videos.
• Buy concert tickets online.
• Similar sites: HearWhere and GigFreaks.

Check out SongKick @ www.songkick.com

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• HearWhere: Find Concerts In Your Area
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• GigFreaks: Find Live Concerts in Your Area
• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area
• Yahoo Upcoming: Upcoming Events Locator for Your Area

With Zvents you can also filter local events by time (Today, Tomorrow or Next 7 days), check events in the nearby cities or see which events have been added recently. Many events have direct links to Ticketmaster or other similar websites in case you decide to purchase the tickets online. When you click on an event for further details, Zvents not only shows the detail for the event but also allows you to go directly to the event’s website or add the event date to your online calendar like Google, Yahoo, AOL or Outlook.

Features:

• Local event search for your city.
• Filter events by location, event type or timeline.
• Check the event’s website and buy tickets online.
• See the exact event location on Google Maps and nearby restaurants and bars.
• Rate events and post comments/reviews.
• Similar sites: Yahoo Upcoming, Bandsintown, Happenr and HearWhere.

Check out Zvents @ www.zvents.com

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You can search by entering your location (zip code or city) or by the music genre. GigZee shows you who is playing where and what are they charging. The site presents all venue details that you can add  to your favorites and share with your friends.

You can also view artist details and click through to check their myspace page or other websites.

Features overview:

• Find local live music gigs by artist, venue or music genre.
• Track the gig, add to your favorites or email to your friends.
• See detailed information about the venue including maps.
• Browse upcoming gigs by day of the week.
• GigZee also suggests other gigs that you may like.
• See who else is tracking a gig and add comments.
• Similar websites: HearWhere, GigFreaks and Bandsintown.

Check out GigZee @ www.GigZee.com

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• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area
• Yahoo Upcoming: Upcoming Events Locator for Your Area

Each event on the list has short description, event dates, number of interested users and the venue. You can also search for events, browse them by category, location, type and dates, add events to your calendar and subscribe to be notified on changes.

Additionally you can add new events to the calendar and invite friends. If you have a particular interest in certain type of events, you can join groups to discuss them with like-minded people, view relevant events and promote your own events to the members of the group.

Features:

• View and search for upcoming events in your area.
• Browse for events by location, by category, by tags and calendar dates.
• View the number of people interested in an event.
• View event location on a map and see events happening nearby.
• Add events to your calendar, add your own events to the site, invite friends.
• Subscribe to receive event updates by RSS.
• Join groups of users with similar interests to stay current or relevant events. Promote your own events within the Group.
• Register or login with your Yahoo! ID.
• Similar websites: Bandsintown, Happenr and HearWhere

Check out Yahoo Upcoming @ http://upcoming.yahoo.com

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• TicketStumbler: Find, Compare And Buy Sports Tickets
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How does it work?

1. Search for events by performer/team, venue or location.
2. Choose the event and the venue
3. Compare different ticket prices depending on the section and row of the venue.
4. Press “Buy!”
5. Complete the order at the ticket reseller’s website

You can view the venue seating chart for the event, though its not yet available for all the venues.

Features:

• Compare ticket prices online.
• Find cheapest tickets to sold out events through one site.
• Browse for events by performer/team, location and the venue.
• Compare ticket prices by section and row of the venue.
• Pulls ticket pricing information from different resellers including StubHub and TicketsNow.
• Free, no registration.
• Other sites to compare tickets: TicketPredator, Bandsintown, TicketStumble and FanSnap.

Check out TicketsFTW @ www.ticketsftw.com

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• MakeUseOf 'Geeky Fun' - Hillarious Geeky Pics and Videos from different parts of web.

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• Yahoo Upcoming: Upcoming Events Locator for Your Area
• TicketStumbler: Find, Compare And Buy Sports Tickets
• TicketPredator: Online Ticket Price Comparison For US Events

HearWhere not only shows concerts in the area and who is playing nearby but also lets you listen to tracks by the artist and provides links to their website, myspace page, related reviews and blogs.

If there is a live show of an artist which is not listed, you can add it by linking to the artist’s Myspace page and HearWhere will update the artist’s show list automatically.

Features :

• Find concerts near you.
• Free and no registration.
• Browse live shows by genre, date and proximity to a location.
• View shows’ locations on a map.
• Listen to  artists’ music.
• Read reviews and related blogposts.
• Contrebute by adding artists’ live shows to the site.
• Similar websites: GigFreaks and Bandsintown.

Check out HearWhere @ www.hearwhere.com

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• MakeUseOf 'Geeky Fun' - Hillarious Geeky Pics and Videos from different parts of web.

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• GigZee: Find Local Live Music
• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area
• Yahoo Upcoming: Upcoming Events Locator for Your Area

Additional information such as links to related items on LastFM, YouTube videos and band/artist photos on Flickr provided as well.

Furthermore you can subscribe to particular recommendation list and get updates on your feed reader as soon as there is something new.

Features:

• Get recommendations on upcoming live concerts and shows.
• Filter recommendations by location.
• Subscribe to particular recommendations list and get updates on your feedreader.
• Additional information about the band or artist provided.
• Get related items from LastFM, YouTube and Flickr.

Check out GigFreaks @ www.gigfreaks.com

• New: Follow MakeUseOf on Twitter. Recommended!
• MakeUseOf 'Geeky Fun' - Hillarious Geeky Pics and Videos from different parts of web.

• HearWhere: Find Concerts In Your Area
• SongKick: Check Entire Concert History Of Favorite Bands
• GigZee: Find Local Live Music
• Zvents: Find Events in Your Area
• Yahoo Upcoming: Upcoming Events Locator for Your Area