Rock goes live on the Internet

DAVID LISTER

Arts Correspondent

An open-air rock concert on the banks of the Clyde in Glasgow is to be the first British concert transmitted on the Internet.

The landmark linking of live performance and new technology will give the concert a potential audience of 25 million around the world.

More importantly, it will test the effectiveness and quality of the Internet for transmitting a live performance, and gauge the numbers of people prepared to sit in front of their computer screens to see and hear the bands.

The multi-media concert, called Stormy Waters, will take place in Glasgow on 21 and 22 July. It will feature the new-wave bands Plaid, Autechre and Sativa Drummers. As well as live performance, there will be large screens - suspended on dockyard cranes above the river - showing images sent from digital artists around the world via the Internet.

The Internet transmission of the show and the transmission of images from digital artists is being co-ordinated at Glasgow University. From a unit in the university buildings, digitised pictures from around the world will be transferred to a vantage point on a tower of the university, where the signals will be routed on to a radio transmitter dish and beamed over Glasgow to the concert site.

Meanwhile, audio and video of the Stormy Waters event will be digitised on site and beamed back to the university, where it will be multicast on the global Internet to computer screens around the world.