Boomboxd.
Archiving unique and niche pieces of media while adding an insufferably clever joke or serious review is something that has dominated the social landscape in the 2020s.
Sites like Letterboxd and Goodreads have allowed many people like myself to collect several niche books and movies as if they were the Infinity Stones, in order to showcase diverse taste and individuality.
Now live music is getting that treatment, which seems like an obvious gap for this type of social media gimmick.
This new service is called Seen Live, and it’s a free app that allows users to personally record their experiences at concerts, festivals, DJ sets, and nightclubs.
Similar to Letterboxd, users can search for past, present and future events, give ratings out of five, create personal write ups and upload photos and videos taken at them.
Maybe now the endless seas of iPhone videos at concerts (whose only purpose is to flaunt on Instagram stories, or annoy the person standing behind) will finally get some more use.
This is exactly the issue that the app’s creator, Jordan Taylor, wishes to fix.
“I built Seen Live because I realised that I couldn’t remember half of the artists and DJs I’d seen live after a while, and all the photos and videos from those nights were buried somewhere in my camera roll with no context.”
Also via his chat with Mixmag, Taylor said he “wanted one place to look back on everything, a proper archive of every show I’d ever been to”.
Since now, such things were only bestowed upon those that could remember, those that journal or those that keep a rough, undated list on their Notes app (that may or may not be me).
Jokes aside, the app will naturally allow users to find out about more acts they wouldn’t normally see, based on people on the ground giving real and genuine exposure to an important component of music.
Now the age old phrase ‘there’s nothing to do in Sydney’ can be further dispelled by a more accessible way to share live music experiences, along with community radio, influencers and independent media.
