Songkick Concerts – clever app for finding gigs by your favourite music artists!
by Paul Wilks
Jun 25, 2012 10:28 AM –
Install
Songkick Concerts is a clever and intuitive service for finding gigs by your favourite artists when they are playing locally to you. Using your music library it builds a customised calendar of upcoming concerts, so you always know who is playing, where and when. If you’re a fan of live music, this is most certainly for you!
Price: Free
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Scans your music libraries to build a comprehensive list of matching concerts, all local to you!
- Also imports from Facebook, Pandora and last.fm!
- Receive notifications when new gig dates are released!
- Gorgeous user interface with great use of photography!
- Further gives you access to venues, ticket options and other information!
- Lets you save dates to your Google calendar!
Cons
- You might not want to track every band in your music library. The app automatically uploads them and, while you can stop tracking certain artists individually, there might be a more customisable way of doing it. For example, if the app instead loaded all the artists, then let you the user select which ones you want to follow- this might be more intuitive and user-friendly.
Features:
If you love attending live music events, this is absolutely the app you need. Songkick is a service that helps you find, and keeps you updated with, all the live music in your local area. The app works by scanning your music library (also your Google Music library, Pandora, Facebook and last.fm accounts) and then uploads all the artists you like. Once this is done, it will track all those bands, groups and artists- letting you know when they are playing, where, who is supporting, how to get tickets and even venue information. You can select towns and cities which are local to you, which lets the app give you a list of upcoming concerts in that area, plus it lets you know if any of your favourite acts are playing locally. Locations can be removed or added so, if you’re visiting an area for a weekend or a few days, you can see who’s playing and perhaps incorporate the concert into your plans.
I especially like the user interface which is wholly ICS inspired and is fantastically easy to use. The app is incredibly vibrant and makes awesome use of photography and images. You can also add gigs to your own calendar, share the information with friends and even get up to date ticket information, all within the app. Songkick have actually been familiar to me after coming into contact with them at a company where I worked previously, so I’ve actually been a signed up member of their web service for quite some time now. I thought it was pretty cool to see such a slick Android app from them.
The only thing I would change about the app is the way you begin tracking artists. The app scans your music libraries (etc) and while this is great- you might not want to track everyone. It picks up all the artists in every album you have, so if there’s a random compilation album it will identify every artist and load them into your tracking list. It would perhaps be better to provide a check list of all artists and then be able to tick those you want to track.
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Songkick Concerts- App front page
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Songkick Concerts- Brilliantly simple navigation
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Songkick Concerts- Artists list
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Songkick Concerts- Artist info
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Songkick Concerts – List of concerts local to me, with tabbed lists of other locations
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Songkick Concerts – Upcoming local concert
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Songkick Concerts- Calendar list, theres nothing in mine at the moment
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Songkick Concerts – Easily add locations
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Songkick Concerts- Track more artists
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Songkick Concerts- Search events by date
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Songkick Concerts – Scanning
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Songkick Concerts- Settings
Usefulness:
If you love live music and try and attend lots of concerts, this is the perfect app for tracking your favourite bands and acts. You can also just check out what acts are playing locally. It lets you find out more about each gig, even things like who the supporting act is and the venue location. The other useful feature is that it can add these into your calendar for reminders etc., meaning you won’t miss out on concerts you want to attend.
Ease of Use:
Songkick Concerts is ridiculously easy to use and navigation is an absolute breeze. Even just playing about with the app and exploring artists is fun, letting you find all kinds of events local to you. Also, because you can add local towns and cities, you always know who is touring near you.
Frequently Used:
This will obviously depend on how often you like to go out and check out live music events. However, there is always plenty going on in the app and it’s regularly updated, so its something music fans will want to check out regularly.
Interface:
Because Songkick Concerts utilizes the slick ICS ‘Holo’ guidelines, the app looks and feels amazing to use. The use of photography in the app can’t be understated either, using the app is a lush and vibrant experience. If you have ICS on your phone, the app also supports a cool little widget for up-to-date concert information.