Rant: I hit 100 shows taped on my phone and it finally made me quit deleting the bad ones

Mark Hernandez · 2026-10-01T08:15:04.849098+00:00

I've been recording shows on my phone since a Japandroids gig at the 9:30 Club back in 2016, and last Friday at a tiny basement show in Richmond I hit 100 recordings. For a long time I deleted anything that wasn't clean, so I figured I had maybe 30 keepers, but when I actually counted the folder I had 100 files and 62 of them were shows I almost tossed. Turns out the sloppy ones from that rainy show in Norfolk or the one where the singer's mic kept cutting out are the ones I actually replay, because they sound like being there instead of a studio record. I used to think a bootleg was only worth keeping if it sounded pro, and that was dumb. What's your rule for keeping a rough tape, do you save everything or still delete the messy ones?

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Rant: I hit 100 shows taped on my phone and it finally made me quit deleting the bad ones | Concert Bootleg Swap - Topic Shares