Up-and-coming musicians gain a new platform to showcase their talents
Imagine a world where you could see your favourite artist perform continents away from you, live, on your laptop. Imagine an opportunity to witness rising musicians playing their music, unrestricted by record labels and radio muscle.
You needn’t imagine that anymore because a new phenomenon, Boiler Room, is coming to South Africa.
Formed by UK music enthusiast Blaise Bellville, Boiler Room is a platform that gives young artists the opportunity to perform live on a small stage with a few people in attendance, to a potential audience of millions via online streaming.
“For a young artist, being featured on the Boiler Room project is all about promotion. They can then get some bookings after being exposed and then they also open up opportunities to tour,” said Bellville.
Noting from first-hand experience, Bellville said that the idea of going live during music shows has yielded mostly positive results.
“People have come to use Boiler Room to experience what a particular event, and the area around it, could be like. That gives birth to curiosity and the music lover and musician will both benefit. When an unknown artist, say from the UK, is seen on Boiler Room by someone in South Africa, they have a higher chance of getting decent ticket sales when they fly out to South Africa as opposed to if they were not exposed,” he said.
However, some might argue that while the Boiler Room initiative is great as it is groundbreaking, it is not the same as being at the live show.
“We have never seen this as a replacement of live shows. That’s just impossible. A lot of people have raised concerns that if the musicians give out their music for free online, then there is a huge chance that fans will hold onto that and not care when the live show comes their way and we at Boiler Room disagree. What we have always found is that the live streamers only resort to the computer because that’s the only way to bridge the geographical gap. When the show comes to their town, they would love to experience it live,” he explained.
Going back to the roots of Boiler Room, Bellville explained that it fulfilled a need for many musicians who were starting out.
“We started Boiler Room because we were frustrated by the fact that we could not promote the music that we loved in the way that we did. Radio, ultimately, dictated what the masses wanted to hear. We came across hundreds of great musicians who would never make it on radio and that was just unfair. We took it upon our-selves to promote these people to a ready market and see their reaction. So we had a webcam and a computer which streamed the events live. Slowly, people began tuning in.”
The Boiler Room will take place tomorrow in Joburg with our very own artists Black Coffee, Okmalumkoolkat, Culoe de Song, Shimza and Black Motion, among others. While that is great on paper, the reality is that South Africa does not have the best internet services. Bellville, however, promised that things will go smoothly.
“We are now slightly more advanced as hardware has become cheaper so we can pack up our entire broadcast equipment in two suitcases. In a world of online streaming, we are pretty high up there with our technology. We have 3G and 4G back-packs which can stream high-quality videos. We have three or four camera operators and one director,” he said.