Early on in my concert-going youth, I was convinced that sheer devotion to my favorite bands would burn every detail of their shows into my memory. Sure, I took pictures (with a digital camera, because it was the 2000s). But apart from that, I left it all to my hippocampus, or whatever part(s) of the brain we use to store details like “where was I?” and “how many times did I get kicked in the head by a crowd surfer?” Now, I look back on that approach and see the folly.
I started logging my concert experiences last year in a Google doc, and the experience was humbling. Despite my teenage conviction that I’d maintain a photographic memory, I found myself struggling to recall even the most basic details. Did I start going to Warped Tour in 2007 or 2008? And which was the one where Laura Jane Grace wound up playing an entire Against Me! set on an acoustic guitar? It took a lot of internet searches and cross referencing to figure these things out, and I’m honestly still not sure about the Against Me! thing.
In other words, this journey exposed me to a reality that some of my more mindful friends figured out a lot earlier in life: if something is important to you, it’s worth putting it down in words somewhere. Until recently, there wasn’t a super elegant way to do that. But now, Encore founder Adam Offitzer hopes to bring all our memories together in one place. This year, he launched a social sharing platform for live music that lets users log their concert experiences, discover upcoming shows, and connect with other fans.
After playing around with Encore for a couple weeks, I’ve gotta say (and have not, for the record, been paid to say) it’s pretty fun! The first question is a vulnerable one, prompting users to log their first live show. As tempted as I was to claim mine was Flaming Lips in 2007, after my musical tastes had (somewhat) matured, I went with the real answer: Backstreet Boys in 1999. From there, you can log every show you’ve ever seen, complete with date, venue information, supporting acts, and your favorite memories. If someone else has already seen the show, you can select it and add your own notes and photos or videos to the conversation. And as Offitzer told The Fringe, his vision goes way beyond just concert logging, approaching something closer to IMDb for the live music industry.
Encore is still in beta mode, so every now and again, you might stumble onto a glitch. But overall, it’s a fun and promising platform that I’m excited to see grow. It reminds me of the forums I spent way too much time on as a teenager — inviting, unified around a specific purpose, and, therefore, a bit less intimidating than broader social platforms today often feel. It’s the kind of place you actually enjoy hanging out.
On that note, if you want to join me in checking Encore out, you can use the link at the bottom of this page to skip the waitlist. When you join, be sure to friend me so we can see how many shows we’ve got in common. For now, read on for an interview with Adam Offitzer. Oh — and one quick note from Adam before we get started: “There’s not an [Encore] app yet. So if you see an app with the same name, that’s not mine.”
How did the idea for Encore come about?
I’ve had a Google Doc for years, at least a decade, of every concert I’ve ever been to. And as I talked to other concert lovers and enthusiasts, I realized a lot of people did the same. I always thought it was fascinating because there’s so much that matters when you write it all down. Who did you go with? What was the venue? There’s so much nostalgia and memory there, and I feel that with the platforms we use today, it all gets so lost. You have to do so much digging, whatever app you use to store all your old photos and videos — if you remember to back them up. I get sad thinking about old footage that probably didn’t make it from my Motorola Krzr to my iPhone or whatever.
Shout out to the Krzr.
My thought was always, “What if there was a dedicated platform for this stuff?” All these pieces of the internet have parts of this, right? Reddit has subreddits for bands. A view from my seat has photos to see if I’m gonna have a good view at Citi Field for My Chemical Romance. And there’s Setlist.fm, of course. But it wasn’t collecting and aggregating it all in this one beautiful place. Letterboxd was a huge inspiration for me, because I think what they built is so beautiful.
I was thinking about the Letterboxd comparison. We’ve seen a lot of platforms pop up for various passions and subcultures in the past decade-plus, including, in Letterboxd’s case, for film lovers. Why do you think we gravitate toward those platforms? What do they give us?
It’s sad to say. I mean, I’m an optimist at heart. But I just think the internet and the deregulation of tech has led to… I can’t think of a better word than “enshittification.” Facebook is terrible to scroll through. Twitter, I could go on about what has happened there. And one more piece that I think is actually the most important is, Reddit is a beautiful mess. All my favorite bands, pretty much, have a subreddit, but 99 percent of people are posting anonymously. You can make real connections there, and I have, but I also think a lot of people don’t want to dive into that world. I actually didn’t really use Reddit before COVID because it was a little bit too message board, low-res for me.
