Bands in Town proves tag clouds, rock 'n' roll ain't dead

Bands in Town is a simple ticket finder for upcoming concerts. It figures out where you're connecting from and filters the names of artists with shows in your area, complete with links to buy tickets and subscribe to a band for future tour dates.

Last.fm users can plug in their credentials to whittle down the ginormous tag cloud or artists. Doing this also highlights and suggests the ones you like or it thinks you'd like. Even without a Last.fm account, it's a far superior browsing experience compared to parsing your local paper.

To further aid the search, there's a set of simple sliders on the left-hand side where you can dial up or down how much you want to pay, and how far you're willing to drive to go see a show. There are also filters to set whether you're looking to see just indie and unsigned artists, or a high profile pop band.

Speaking of the bands, each artist has its own page that hosts a small biography, a "mix tape" compiled of streaming music, and a list of upcoming shows complete with links to selected ticket sellers. Missing, however, is some of that all-important information like when you should be getting up at 5 a.m. to buy tickets for a show.

Compared to Songkick (coverage), Bands in Town is missing the integration with music jukebox software like iTunes to figure out what you're interested based on your listening habits. Of course this won't be an issue for heavy users of Last.fm, but iPod users with a few years of rating history will be left out of the loop.