Already at the forefront of issuing authorized “live bootlegs” of its shows, Pearl Jam will on Sept. 1 launch its own digital download store via its official Web site.
Hours after their completion, full concerts from the group’s fall tour will be available for $9.99 as 192K MP3s, whose bit rate is almost 50 percent higher than the standard.
Each show will feature special artwork, including a slide show with photos from the performance that will run while the files download. The initial plan is to make all of Pearl Jam’s upcoming shows in Canada and the United States available to download, excluding an Aug. 29 concert in Missoula, Mont., that is doubling as a fund-raiser for U.S. Senate hopeful Jon Tester.
As with past incarnations of the bootlegs, which were initially available only on CD, the material will be mixed on the fly by longtime Pearl Jam engineer Brett Eliason. Eliason’s company, Basecamp Productions, also developed the software to power the download store.
The idea to embark on such an endeavor has been floating around the Pearl Jam camp for several years. “The thing we were looking for was a really good way to manage the thing,” Tim Bierman, manager of Pearl Jam’s Ten Club fan organization, told Billboard.com. “That’s where Basecamp came in. They developed a killer application I’m really confident the fans are going to love.”
In an interesting twist, the files will be encoded without DRM (digital rights management) restrictions, allowing them to be burned to CD and transferred to portable MP3 players. Select material will also be available from digital services such as the iTunes music store.
