Metallica to Sell Digital Downloads of Tour

Metallica is joining Phish, String Cheese Incident and many others in offering digital downloads of concerts:

In a continuing effort to provide their fans with the most unique services, Metallica, along with technology partners CinemaNow.com and nugs.net enterprises, today announced the launch of a new Web site, www.LiveMetallica.com. The site will make available for download music from each performance on the North American leg of their “Madly In Anger With The World” tour that kicks off today in Phoenix, Arizona. Full concert audio will be available on the site within four days of the actual show.

“This is the next logical step in a process that began back in 1991 when we first implemented the ‘Taper Section’ at our shows, where the fans were encouraged to bring in their own gear to record the show, and then take home their very own ‘bootleg’ of the concert they had just seen.” said Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. “This technology will enable our fans to get the best possible recording of the show, without having to hold a microphone in the air for the entire night!”

As part of this unique band-to-fan service, LiveMetallica.com will offer high quality, unedited soundboard recordings of all shows in standard MP3 and CD-quality FLAC files via a state-of-the-art delivery system powered by CinemaNow’s PatchBay technology and nugs.net enterprises. All download files are compatible with Windows, Mac and Unix, allowing for maximum flexibility and ease of use. Once downloaded, shows can be burned to disc, transferred to portable players, or played through a computer. Each show also comes with printable booklets, tray inlays, and labels for fans that elect to burn the files to CD. The cost for each two-plus hour show is $9.95 for MP3s and $12.95 for higher-quality FLAC files. These are the same prices currently offered on similar live music services such as Phish’s LivePhish.com and LiveDownloads.com, which features The String Cheese Incident and other bands.

Making this offer even more exciting is the fact that “The Madly In Anger With The World” tour will feature Metallica playing a greater variety of songs than they have in years, changing the set list each show and drawing from their deep twenty-year, ten-album catalogue of rock classics.

Whether it is a fan who attended the show wanting to relive the concert experience or a fan who is a thousand miles away hearing the show for the first time, the LiveMetallica.com service will be the ultimate way to tap into the Metallica sound on every step of the tour.

I think the price is too high, but every other element of this is very cool.