Getting Online Technology to Work in Concert With the Latest Sounds

The music business envisions a day when anyone in the world can log onto the Internet and experience a live concert Webcast, with surround-sound and full-motion video. For the average home computer user, that day is not today. Slow connections, jammed Web servers and choppy video make it a difficult proposition, at best.

Still, audio is improving, old concerts are being archived and chat rooms are giving like-minded fans a place to gather. Plus, experiencing a rock concert at home is cheaper and doesn’t require a long drive to a huge stadium or smoky club. You can also check out bands you might not have paid to see and buy the band’s CDs instantly or get a tour schedule.

Before entering the wild and woolly world of Webcasts, make sure you have at least a 28.8 kbps modem--and with a 56 kbps modem or ISDN line, you can get better video and stereo sound. Download the latest free version of RealAudio (which comes with RealVideo), and you’ll also want iChat so you can enter related chat parlors. Each concert site provides links to these tools.

JamTV (www.jamtv.com) offers almost daily concerts, though some of them are rebroadcasts or simply interviews and online chats. I was impressed at a recent Webcast of off-kilter punk-rockers Ween, who were playing live from Chicago’s Metro club (and are playing this Sunday at the El Rey). I had no trouble getting a video and audio feed, and the JamTV staffers were in the chat room answering users’ questions and squelching trouble-making chatters. The sound was impressive, and the video was passable when it wasn’t frozen in place.

LiveConcerts (www.liveconcerts.com) has a more eclectic selection, with a John Coltrane jazz tribute running this weekend and archived performances from Dick Dale to Los Lobos to Marianne Faithfull. A bonus is an archive of “Morning Becomes Eclectic” radio shows from Santa Monica’s KCRW-FM (89.9), which include an amazing array of in-studio jam sessions and interviews. If you missed recent shows with Cornershop, Sinead O’Connor or Dwight Yoakum, surf on by to listen in RealAudio.

Also covering the local scene is L.A. Live (www.lalive.com), a Web site that has agreements with the Palace, Whisky A-Go-Go, Viper Room, Palladium and many other mid-sized venues. The archives include a nice variety of national artists and local acts, but the sound and video are hit-or-miss. Another problem is there’s no schedule, so it’s hard to plan ahead, though they’re planning a Webcast of Auntie Christ (with X’s Exene Cervenkova) from the Troubadour this Friday.

For a guide to online shows, check out UnfURLed (www.unfurled.com) or Timecast (www.timecast.com). UnfURLed is an MTV/Yahoo! production, with a helpful search engine so you can find a particular band, plus detailed previews of upcoming Webcasts. Timecast is basically a guide to RealAudio and RealVideo live broadcasts. You can find events happening right while you’re online, search by day or even get a reminder e-mail so you don’t miss out.

As with most Net entertainment technology, there’s always someone skirting copyrights. One Pearl Jam fan set up a site (www.sna.com/websterj/pearljam/) that includes video of the band on “Saturday Night Live” and “Late Night With David Letterman,” as well as audio of entire concerts and even a couple bootlegs. Take a gander before the lawyers catch wind of it.

In the end, the Web has its niceties, but it’ll never beat the aural and visual splendor of live shows--high price, spilled beers and all. Music Webcasts will one day become a real alternative for faraway fans, but they’ll hardly eat into ticket sales and simply represent an updated version of radio’s “Westwood One” or TV’s “Don Kirschner’s Rock Concerts.”