App
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A Field Guide
Thousands of live recordings,
one tap away. Here's how it works.
What's inside
Getting Around
Discover
Playing Shows
Now Playing Bar
Queue & Favs
Tips & Settings
Discover
Artists
Venues
Years
Favs
Discover
Your daily digest — shows recorded today, most-played recordings, multi-artist nights, and recent arrivals.
Artists · Venues · Years
Browse the archive by category. Tap any item on the left to filter shows on the right. "All" at the top shows everything.
Favs
All your saved shows, organized by artist. Tap ♥ on any show, card, or list item to add it.
Search
The search bar filters whichever tab you're on — artists, venues, years, or show titles. Tap ✕ or press Escape to clear.
Time Travel to a Show
Tap any Time Travel card to load a complete multi-artist night into your queue. Great for finding artists you'd never search for directly.
Today in the Archive
Every show recorded on today's date, across all years. See who played on this date in 1989, 1994, 2003…
Popular
The most-played shows in the collection. Results reshuffle each visit — tap ↺ to reshuffle again anytime.
Concert detail
Each show page shows the weather that night, a Chicago historical note from that date, and how many times the recording has been played.
  • 1
    Tap any show in a list or card to open its detail page.
  • 2
    Tap Play All to load the whole concert, or tap any track to start from that point. Either opens the Now Playing bar.
  • 3
    Add to Queue appends all tracks without interrupting what's currently playing.
  • 4
    Long-press any track for more options: Play Next, Add to Queue, or Go to Artist.
  • 5
    Tap the album art thumbnail to open a full-screen lightbox with a higher-resolution image.
14:22-23:08
Discover
Prev
Play/Pause
Next
Queue
Tap the title or artist text in the bar to jump directly to that show's detail page.
Tap anywhere on the scrub bar to seek within the current track. Elapsed and remaining times are shown on either side.
The compass button (left) returns you to Discover from anywhere in the app.
Using the Queue
Tap ≡ in the Now Playing bar to open it. Long-press any item to go to its show, go to its artist, or remove it. Tap Clear to wipe everything.
Saving shows
Tap ♥ on any show detail page, list item, or Discover card. The heart turns amber. Tap again to unsave. Find everything in the Favs tab.
Backup & restore
All favorites are stored locally on your device. To move them to another browser, go to Settings → Export Favorites Link and copy the URL. Paste it into Settings on any device to restore.
Time Travel — tap any card in the Discover section to instantly load a complete multi-artist night into your queue.
Today in the Archive — see who played on this date in 1989, 1994, 2003… across all years in the collection.
Popular — the most-played shows. Tap ↺ to reshuffle without reloading the page.
Concert detail — shows the weather that night, a Chicago history note from that date, and total play count.
Search is tab-aware — searching on Artists finds artists, Venues finds venues. Switch tabs to change what you're filtering.
Browse any collection — works with any public Internet Archive audio collection. Open Settings, enter a collection ID, tap Save & Reload.
Switch collections
Open Settings (gear icon), enter any Internet Archive audio collection ID — the part after archive.org/details/ — and tap Save & Reload. The app title updates automatically.
Add to Home Screen
In Safari on iPhone, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. Full-screen experience, lock-screen controls, app icon on your home screen.