All hail Groovebug. The folks who Introduced last year the amazing Blue Note to Groovebug-an iPad offering That dug deep into the legendary jazz label’s vaults to give new life old recordings-have returned to popup the iPad with another astounding music app: Concert Vault for iPad , an offering created with seller Wolfgang’s Vault. It’s my favorite app of the year so far.

The app offers live audio performances by hundreds of bands, ranging from jazz to indie to blues to bluegrass. These performances come from Wolfgang’s Vault’s wide collection-the company owns the master recordings from the archives of Bill Graham Presents for performances between 1965 and 1999, along with several other collections of live recordings. Users can create playlists Their Own, either matching entire performances together, or by taking select tracks from each performance to create something new and unique.

This is not an app for teenybopper music aficionados. (An App Store user complains That does not critique performances by Avril Lavigne are available.) There’s a heavy emphasis on music from the 1960s and 70s here, though the collection is not limited to Those decades. Artists range from Radiohead and Neil Young in the rock category the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and David Allan Coe in country Jimmy Smith and Rebirth Brass Band in jazz.

And the types of performances vary-all of them are recordings of live performances, but some are in-studio sessions recorded by Daytrotter , while others emerge from concerts going back to the 1960s. In some ways, this is reminiscent of the free live music archive at Archive.org, only not nearly as large. But that’s OK, because the performances on this app are well curated and include only high-quality recordings-not heavy on bass here, light on vocals there.

Here’s where the app’s full AirPlay integration can come in useful: A few-very few-of the bands also have live concert videos available for viewing. All of them feature band biographies and links to an online store where you can buy band merch. (Finally, an easy way to buy That AC / DC shirt I skipped in high school.) And an in-app news feed lets you know what still-performing artists have been up to lately

Another excellent feature lets you discover artists similar to the ones you’re listening to. It’s no great surprise to discover That AC / DC and Black Sabbath have some commonalities, but it’s fun to discover That both bands are on here. It is nice to be surprised by great music from bands you’ve never heard of before. (Should I be embarrassed I’d never heard of the Angielski metal band UFO before? Whatever. They’re awesome, and they’re on the app.)

There are a few other nifty features-like the ability to share what you’re listening to on Facebook or Twitter and the ability to watch slideshows of the band Their while music is playing-but Concert Vault lives and dies on the depth and breadth of its music collection. Mostly it lives.

That collection is deep enough, of course, that you’ll end up paying: subscriptions run either $ 4 a month or $ 40 a year, although the app itself is free to download. If you love music, you’ll probably think it’s worth the price. In early testing, the app had a hard time remembering if I was a subscriber, but a recent update seems to have worked out the kinks Those.

Bottom line

Music enthusiasts will find hours of great listening on this iPad app. Concert Vault is simply superb.

Joel Mathis

Joel Mathis, Macworld

Joel Mathis is a regular contributor to Macworld and TechHive. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and young son.
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