Venue Spotlight: Freestar Bay

Second Life Live Music Review
Written by Enniv Zarf (RL: Paul Kwo)
Metaverse Music
Freestar Bay

Alright it is getting a little close to Christmas and the holidays and I am sure no one really wants to hear any more of my reviews of artists for the time being. I'm going to take a pause on that and return after the holidays and continue to review more people then.

In the mean time I will present some of the best marathon venues and other special highlights of Second Life Music. These are all what I think are great stuff and worthy of attention so it'll all be all happy and good for the time being. I am not going to do any full negative venue spotlights.

The first one on my list is Freestar Bay, created by Freestar Tammas. This is one of the best venues I know of in Second Life. Now I want to first make it clear, I don't claim to know all the venues out there, so this is a review based on what I do know about venues. I have been to quite a few the last few weeks but still many more I have yet to see.

Freestar Tammas of course holds the fort down at Freestar Bay and she's a wonderful musician. But it has been a while though since I have heard her so I would love to do a review on her sometimes too soon.

Her weekly musician showcases are held Saturday night...

...where each musician performs a half hour set. This really is the best way to get to know different musicians of all styles. There are some regulars that I am fond of and are happy to know that they perform there often. But being a showcase with a rotating roster of people, there are bound to be people I don't like. Nevertheless this is one of the best ways to sample different musicians and discover whom you do and don't like.

What I do absolutely admire about Freestar and her venue is her absolute support of Live Music. Originally they were in a private sim elsewhere where they had to put up with prim limitations and pressure from the sim owner because of her venue's popularity. But now she is on her own island and totally in control. She also aims to open up alongside her main venue, a few side venues to support alternative live music.

She doesn't really make any money from this endeavor. She only aims to try to get the sims self supporting enough and to pay her staff. On top, she wants the donations to support charity organizations. These are all wonderful and noble efforts to do, though I do know how difficult that is in Second Life. One can still hope though.

Still her main weekly musician showcase is definitely a very important showcase to get a good audience group to hear you. So if you are a new musician and have not performed at Freestar Bay, I would highly recommend checking it out one Saturday night and seeing all the different people playing there. It'll give you a good sampling of what's out there. And perhaps if you get to know Freestar and invite her to one of your events, she may just invite you to hers. But that's between you and her. I have no idea how she chooses her musicians.

I do love the venue a lot and am extremely happy it got a new home. It's a beautiful place and does great in creating the environment. Most weeks she uses a virtual room to provide a variety of settings for the performers to pick to fit their music better. But once in a while she has these themed nights with one permanent set, which are also fantastic in their feel and look.

Finally, if you know of another venue that you think are amazing and has done tremendous amount of support of live musicians in Second Life, please leave me a note here and I'll check them out!