Music is probably my favorite 311 album but by the time I first saw 311 in 2007 there were only a few of the songs that made their way into the setlist. I received an email to let me know that 311 would be doing a separate livestream for each of their first three albums a month apart. I have definitely spent 20 bucks on worse things.

The email confirmation said “VIDEO GOES LIVE AT 5:00 PM PT; PERFORMANCES BEGIN AT 6:00 PM PT.” What this equated to was an 8-bit version of “Down” playing with a cartoon-y background then the feed immediately cutting to a 10-minute timer with trippy visuals/sound for all the stoners in the crowd, and by the looks of the chat box that appeared to be many. Nearly the whole 5 o’clock hour was just shots of the empty stage/studio where the band was to play save for the occasional foghorn to announce “311Music Facts,” which was a punny way to give some background on the album. Finally near the end of the hour they showed a time lapse of “the Hive” being built and then rolled right into “Welcome” before playing the rest of the album front to back in sequence.

This livestream was actually live unlike at least one of the previous livestreams I recently watched that was pre-recorded. I thought it was ironic that there was a chat box the whole time because bands in a live setting usually want people to forego technology and pay attention to the performance. This got me wondering how many people at home were taking shitty video clips of their computer screen with their phones and posting to YouTube but I digress. These guys are awesome live and although having to watch a live performance physically removed from the band was somewhat of a bummer it still did not disappoint. I was especially feeling “Visit,” “Unity,” “Plain,” and “Feels So Good” and whether they wanted to or not so were my neighbors.