BlueHaze

Nothing beats seeing a live show. The energy of the crowd, feeding the band, feeding back to the crowd. The smell of the club, the deaf ringing in your ears when you leave, the high that you leave with. Nothing beats it.

But are we getting close to replicating that experience? I saw the U2 3D movie tonight. And it's incredible. In some ways, it's even better than the live experience. You can see the beads of sweat on Bono's forehead and the writing on the picks on The Edge's guitar stand. You're better than front row - you're on the stage!

I know, I'm late to the game. The movie's been out for a while and blogged about incessantly. But I've been working late hours on my live music start-up, so I haven't been getting out much. But a few things became very clear to me tonight as I was experiencing this 3D movie event...

First - 3D is the future of movies. It will save the theatrical industry as that experience cannot be replicated by downloading on BitTorrent or watching in your living room. Now add smell to the visual and audio equation and you've nailed it. Picture sitting in a movie theater with small gizmo delivering bursts of scents at just the right times to stimulate all of your senses simultaneously - a fresh hot dog on the steps of the court house, a burning car in a chase scene, a sweaty cockpit in a near mid-air collision. You're there. And people will flock to the movies again.

Second - 3D is the future of sports. Where are the most expensive seats in the house? On the court. On the field. By the glass. Get me on the field with 3D. We just need to get over the challenge of live 3D. I'd invest in that start-up.

Third - 3D is NOT the future of live music. Live music is still the future of live music. Because live music is all about the connection.

OK, so you can't always get to the show. Or you can't always afford it. Or maybe you need to re-live the experience. So you want to find the closest experience to being there. Here's the problem - live music on MTV doesn't rate, so you can't find it. 80% of new DVDs purchased never even get opened - DVDs are for collecting, not watching. YouTube audio = crap audio. And mobile phone video clips are just that - clips, not 120 minutes of blistering drums and bass. So 3D is "almost live". And sometimes, "almost live" is a great night of entertainment.

But it will never, ever replace the live show - because you want to feel that connection to the band running through your body! You want to smell the sweat of the person beside you. You want the high.

Every show is a community. For one night, in that one venue, you belong to a community.

That's why we built BlueHaze. To connect those thousands of live communities every night. To give them a place to hang out and extend the two or three hours of concert bliss. Sure, you can post your concert photos or review a show in a dozen spots - you can share with your facebook friends, or your twitter followers, or your flickr community. But they're not your community. Your community lives before, during, and after the concert event. And it lives at BlueHaze, which is now officially live to the public.