Bored of bad sound and living room sets? Check out this live-streamed concert series

In the early days of the pandemic, when musicians were setting up home concerts and streaming to large audiences around the world, Jonathan Bunce was watching.

He loved the intimacy of the shows, with artists getting up close to their cameras and looking right at their fans. But the tinny sound and living room backgrounds were getting boring.

Bunce runs Wavelength Music, which produces concerts in Toronto during non-COVID times and has done so for 20 years. 

So despite the lockdown and entertainment closures, Bunce did what he knows how to do. He connected with artists and venues to make a concert series, with professional-quality sound, in beautiful and beloved venues.

"We wanted to overcome live stream fatigue by making our online shows into can't-miss special occasions, with each show based around a thematic hook or interdisciplinary element," says Bunce.

Then, he streamed them for free.

"In the case of the band catl, who performed live from a venue called The Piston on Bloor Street West, the band were able to play at full volume, which they could not do at home," says Bunce, adding Wavelength was able to do a professional mix on the sound, hire camera operators and elevate the homespun live-streamed concert. "The Piston allowed the band to have five friends in attendance in the room, and even just those five people's enthusiastic cheering and clapping made it feel like the band wasn't playing in a vacuum."

For Halloween, they went even further.

They live-streamed a virtual haunted house, with bands playing in different rooms. Electronic musician Leucrocuta collaborated with visual artist Dot Starkey in a large spooky bathroom performance, and goth rockers Bonnie Trash performed in a "dungeon," which looked like a creepy music video set. They also had the drag troupe the Diet Ghosts host the whole thing. 

Bands Joncro and Westelaken live-streamed  from the Monarch Tavern in November, and on Dec. 17, Wavelength is putting on a holiday Youtube special at 7 p.m. ET.

And, it's not just quality sound and high production values. Wavelength has been raising cash for  charities.

They give artists the option to do a call-out to their audience to donate to the artists' organization of choice. So far, they've raised cash for the Black Legal Action Centre, Women's Health in Women's Hands, and Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis.

Bunce thinks there's more territory to explore with the format before they wrap the series.

There's potential "to completely rethink the live concert experience," he says. "It's a bit like the early days of television. You can do a lot more than just put a camera on a stage play — or in this case, a musician with a guitar or turntables."

À lire en français sur le site de Radio-Canada.

This story is part of Digital Originals, an initiative of the Canada Council for the Arts. Artists were offered a $5,000 micro-grant to either adapt their existing work or create new work for the digital world during the COVID-19 pandemic. CBC Arts has partnered with Canada Council to feature a selection of these projects. You can see more of these projects here.