Welcome to
the
PEARL JAM RUMOR
PIT
Bootleg Update - August 24, 2005
Hey Jammers! We hope you're all geared up and ready for the U.S./Canadian
shows. We're passing along this exciting news on the 2005 digital
bootlegs!
Pearl Jam's Bootleg Program Goes Digital
Beginning
September 1
High-Quality, DRM-Free, Digital Recordings Available
Just Hours After the
SEATTLE - Beginning with Pearl
Jam's sold out concert at the Gorge in George, Washington on September 1, the
band will begin releasing high quality digital downloads of their live shows
exclusively at
www.pearljam.com. The
digital downloads will be available for most of the band's 2005 Canadian and US
dates just hours after each show has ended; they will include special
downloadable artwork and a slideshow specific to each night's show.
Pearl Jam's "digital bootlegs" will be professionally
mixed in real-time at each show by Pearl Jam's longtime studio and live
engineer, Brett Eliason. Eliason's company, Basecamp Productions, developed the
software application that delivers and manages digital downloads. Pearl Jam has
opted to encode the digital files at a higher than standard bit rate (192k) in
an effort to balance manageable file sizes with very good sound quality. The
cost is $9.99 per show.
The "digital bootlegs" are an extension of Pearl Jam's
official bootleg CD program which was launched on the band's 2000 world tour;
over three million bootlegs have been sold since the program's inception. "The
concept for the bootlegs has always been about providing high quality recordings
of our shows at an affordable price for the fans who collect them. A lot of the
band's fans want to own a copy of the live show they saw in their hometown, or a
particularly standout show they hear about from other fans. Making the bootlegs
available in digital form is just a natural evolution for the bootleg CD
program, and a response to more and more fans turning to the web to buy their
music," said the band's manager, Kelly Curtis.
Pearl Jam's "digital bootlegs" are high resolution
digital files that will be released without DRM (Digital Rights Management) so
that fans can burn them to disc, transfer to them to MP3 players or an iPod, or
play them from their hard drives. "The decision to exclude the DRM is
unprecedented for a band of this size, but it's consistent with the band's
sensibilities," says Tim Bierman, manager of the Pearl Jam Ten Club, which will
oversee the digital bootleg program. "We want to make it as hassle-free as
possible for someone to listen to a show they've downloaded regardless of what
music-playing device they use," Bierman adds.
The technology supporting the "digital bootlegs" is
provided by Basecamp Productions (
www.basecampproductions.com).
Basecamp Productions was founded by long-time Pearl Jam sound engineer Brett
Eliason, and his business partner Joshua James. The company combines the
expertise of Eliason - who was the technical architect of the Pearl Jam bootleg
series from the 2000 and 2003 world tours - with Basecamp Production's
proprietary software that delivers and manages digital downloads.
"The mission of Basecamp Productions is to provide
artists with the ability to create their own branded online download systems so
that they can sell high quality digital files through their websites, rather
than re-directing traffic to a 3rd party website, explains Basecamp Productions'
co-founder, Brett Eliason. He adds, "The Basecamp system integrates with the
artists' existing website, allowing fans to download music direct from the
artist."
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To all the new subscribers and new fans - welcome aboard! Here's the
current list of tour dates and we hope to see you on the Message Board (
http://forums.pearljam.com) where
everyone will be sharing their concert memories!
U.S. and Canadian Tour Dates
August
29 Missoula, MT Adams Event Center
(benefit)
September
1 George, WA The
Gorge
2 Vancouver GM Place
4
Calgary Pengrowth Saddledome
5
Edmonton Rexall Place
7 Saskatoon
Credit Union Centre
8 Winnipeg MTS Centre
9
Thunder Bay Ft. William Gardens
11
Kitchener Memorial Auditorium
12
London John Labatt Centre
13
Hamilton Copps Coliseum
15
Montreal Bell Centre
16 Ottawa
Corel Centre
19 Toronto Air Canada Centre
20
Quebec City Colisee Pepsi Arena
22 Halifax Metro
Centre
24 St. John's NFLD Mile One Stadium
25 St.
John's NFLD Mile One Stadium
28 Pittsburgh, PA PNC Park
(opening for Rolling Stones)
30 Atlantic City, NJ The
Borgata
October
1 Atlantic City, NJ The
Borgata
3 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Center
Peace and much love,
Kat and Sea
digitalkat@aol.com
ofthesea@aol.com
P.S. Ten Club Newsletter coming soon! And don't forget that
something "big and free" is still to come.
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