How do you get one of the biggest rock bands in the world to come to your town to play? Cover one of their songs with 1000 musicians that’s how. Five years ago a bunch of Italian Foo Fighters fans decided to convince the band to come and play a gig in Cesena, Italy by getting all those musicians to play Learn to Fly. Not only did it work but the organisers went on to create Rockin’ 1000, creating more of these events. Today, Rockin’1000 will launch on social VR app eyeora so you can see the concerts in 360.
Since that first 2015 gig, Rockin’1000 has put on several live shows featuring 1000 musicians which you can view over on its YouTube page. However, the 2018 Florence show and the Frankfurt and Milan shows from 2019 were all recorded in 360-degrees. That footage has never been publically released until today.
The 360-degree footage allows you to get directly immersed in the concert, able to move between the various sections to watch the drummers or see all the guitar players rocking out. The concerts feature covers of Nirvana’s Smell Like Teen Spirit, ACDC’s Highway to Hell, Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name and of course Foo Fighters’ Learn to Fly, plus many more.
As VRFocus reported earlier this week, eyeora is a social VR app which has recently launched allowing users to create their own immersive rooms or for brands and events to make one, which can be free or charged at the door.
And that’s exactly the case for Rockin’1000. To give you a taster the Stade de France concert will be freely available for a month on eyeora. Then there are several ways to access the rest of the content. After signing up to the platform, if you have a VR headset then the VR Pass for £4 GBP/€5 EUR gives you access to the content for 10 hours.
For those without a headset, you can get the VR Pass plus a smartphone compatible HMD for £18.50/€20. At the moment eyeora can only be viewed through an iOS or Android app or on a Pico Neo. Support for Oculus Quest and Rift is due soon.
As part of eyeora’s ViRtual AID 2020 campaign, Rockin’1000 will be donating part of the proceeds to EMERGENCY, a charity which provides free healthcare to victims of war, poverty and landmines as well as other initiatives.
“In these dark times, full of worry and without the ability to spend
time together, we wanted to give our community and those who still haven’t seen one of our concerts live the opportunity to escape from reality for a few hours and to have fun watching our Thousand play from up close,” said the Rockin’1000 founders in a statement. “At the same time, we also want this new service to support those on the front lines fighting this crisis, and it is because part of the proceeds will be donated to Emergency, who we have always held in high regard.”
As eyeora attracts more creators and begins to expand, VRFocus will keep you updated.