Ever stood in line at a venue for an hour only to discover the show had already sold out? Or worse, had your one of your “friends” mention the next day that someone “dragged” them to the show as their +1? Or, worse still, realized, a month after the fact, that instead of going on the ill-fated date that involved an absinthe-fueled discussion of back hair removal techniques, you could have been seeing Lloyd Cole? (Okay, so maybe the last one was just me.) The point is, no matter how much we love seeing our favorite acts live (the ones that are still together, that is), all of us music aficionadoes slip up every once in a while. So, how does one navigate the delicate balance between not wanting to feel like a loser for missing shows and not wanting to be the kind of loser who spends all their free time figuring out what band is playing when?

Boston music fans Mike Champion and Gary Elliott felt that vigilant groupiedom wasn’t the answer. Says Champion, “We were tired of hearing about shows too late, or having to read too many websites. We thought it should be a lot simpler for lazy folks like us.” So they created a website that would do the work for them–tourb.us, a free concert search service whose bots crawl venue and ticket sales sites to find live shows in Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. “Anyone can search for shows, or use the RSS feeds,” says Champion, but signing up for a (free) tourb.us account means extra perks. Registered users can link with each other for showgoing purposes, so it’s great for stalki–errr, networking. Users build a profile that lists their location and favorite bands; based on the information entered, tourb.us then compiles and updates a calendar of upcoming shows. It’s like having your own personal scenester secretary… although, when the site emails you every thirty minutes to remind you about a show you’re undecided about, it feels a little more like your mother (if your mother cared about Minus the Bear). Unlike your mother’s nagging, however, you can turn the reminders off.

The site just went public in June; according to Champion, it’s “still young, but it’s scrappy.” And, as is evident from the rest of my interview with him, it’s run by snarky dorks like us.

Superstarcastic: Will tourb.us remain strictly a labor of love, or do you hope to make a profit from it at some point?

Champion: Currently we’re focusing on how we can make the site better, and haven’t spent much time on how to make money from it. We’d be happy if we could get some free tickets though.

Superstarcastic: What are some ways that bands can promote themselves through tourb.us?

Champion: We’re excited about helping local bands promote their shows and fans finding new music. Any band can add shows to tourb.us for people to discover along with the thousands of bands we already list. We only recently began letting bands register themselves, but we’re starting to see bands themselves or labels adding shows.

Superstarcastic: How many bands have used the site for this purpose so far (and can you name any names)?

Champion: One band that was early to signup is The Motion Sick who listed the shows from their touring.

Superstarcastic: tourb.us currently tracks shows in seven metropolitan areas–Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. In terms of site users, what city do you think is best represented?

Champion: Those are the cities we’ve focused on, but fans have added shows in other areas as well. Currently the two biggest cities [in terms of site usage] are Boston and San Francisco which is where we started first… both have a high density of music/tech fans.

Superstarcastic: Have forgetful music-loving geeks in other cities expressed an interest in an expansion of tourb.us’ features to their areas?

Champion: We’ve received requests from people around the U.S. and across the globe wanting a service like tourb.us in their town. I guess there are forgetful music-loving geeks everywhere.

Superstarcastic: If you expanded the site to include other cities, what would be the timeline on doing so, and what might be the next city or cities on the list?

Champion: We’re working to strengthen our coverage of large cities like New York and include other cities… [we're] currently working on Philadelphia.

Superstarcastic: How do you guys determine what upcoming shows are listed on the main page…

Champion: Shows are listed on the front page based on a popularity formula that involves the number of fans interested, how often the show has been viewed and the square root of pi.

Superstarcastic: … and is there anything interesting that you’ve learned about people’s music tastes from running the site?

Champion: We’ve noticed that fans’ music tastes really tend to cluster. Browsing the profiles of tourb.us users similar to me has let me know that apparently I should probably be listening to Mates of State, Muse and maybe the Eels.

Superstarcastic: Finally: I read your FAQ, and I just have to ask… what do you guys have against hippies?

Champion: It all started when a hippie killed my grandfather in a drum circle accident. Actually, I don’t remember where that joke began, but we don’t really have anything against non-dirty hippies.

So there you have it. God bless tourb.us, because it emailed me about a month ago to tell me that Lloyd Cole would be coming to town. Now that my tickets are ordered, I know where I’ll be come Friday, November, 3–at the Paradise Rock Club, NOT talking about back waxing. Unless Lloyd mentions it first.

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