just a few points to add to the discussion

I would suggest that ‘the album’ is not the event. The album is a ‘talisman’ of the live event, used by the purchaser to recreate his own personal ‘memory’ of the event. Everyone knows the fan buys it, in order to ‘buy into’ their own experience which they can run and re-run, using the recording. Each person brings their own feelings on the day to that event and if it remains a good one in their mind, through time they attribute how they felt then and what they remember and imagination combine to create their own personal ‘story’.That memory becomes ‘the event’. Before youtube, the filming of live gigs was banned by agents,(fans being searched by security for cameras at the door)-as they quickly realised ‘dedicated’ fans were bootlegging and distributing the actual ‘nite’, which had a direct negative result in album sales. Subsequently, gig-goers, quickly realised they were not only the audience, but an important element of the show-spotting themselves at the gig. It is only recently that the industry, pinned down re new technology and mass access to it, has been forced to succumb. The visual experience and the desire to be a part of the whole thing, is a basic social need. It’s of no surprise that people still want to get directly involved (and maybe because of the recession) are increasingly keen to help to keep music live…more gigs-more memories.