New Music Plus…producer launches new Gigzine app at Band on the Wall

Last night saw Band on the Wall rammed for the launch of Gigzine, a new iphone app developed by New Music Plus… participant, Steve Symons. Gigzine allows audience members to get closer to the music, directing what’s happening on stage – determining playslists and curating the visuals appearing alongside the musicians – and download exclusive gig-related content created especially for Gigzine subscribers. You can download Gigzine from the AppStore.

Headlining the gig last night were top improvising outfit, The Bays, who the hub previously worked with in the early 2000s, producing a national tour that saw them kick off a now long-standing relationship with Richard Barbieri. Throughout their intensely aerobic 90 minute set, which saw them improvising to tunes by everyone from Dizzee Rascal to Shirley Bassey via Talking Heads and Stevie Wonder (plus some music from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!), audience members directed their set list, voting on the tunes they most wanted to hear given that very special Bays treatment and working their magic on the visuals too. Cue for endless ‘arms in the air’ action when people heard the opening bars of the tunes they’d voted for, and a real sense of excitement and involvement amongst everyone there. I returned to my hotel, chuffed that I’d got the Stevie Wonder and David Byrne fix I was looking for…

Steve developed Gigzine as part of his participation in New Music Plus…, a producer development programme managed by the hub, and developed in association with the PRS for Music Foundation. Our New Music Plus…North West programme ran throughout 2010 and continues in 2011, with a conference called Sustaining Innovation through Collaboration at Tate Liverpool on 15 March. For more details contact me or and keep an eye out for future blog posts as we firm up the programme and begin to confirm panellists.