This evening I went to a Black Eyed Peas concert at Los Angeles' Stables Center... at the Century 20 Theater Complex in Daly City, CA. This was a Fathom Events event, a live concert broadcast to movie theaters across the US, fulfilling one of the promises of the digital movie theater: non-movie digital content streamed to paying customers. How was it?

Overall, it was a pretty good experience. As expected, the audio clarity was excellent, and sounded good on the theater sound system, but not as good as it could have been -- read more on that later. Visually, the direction and production (if that's what you call them) were excellent, much in the style of many modern, sophisticated concert movies or TV specials. I would go again.

The experience could be better, though; following are my recommendations, free of charge!

Louder... LOUDER!

The sound in the theater needed to be much louder, perhaps twice as loud. The audio was broadcast at normal theater levels, which now days is pretty loud -- think action-blockbuster loud. While this can sometimes seem overwhelming in a movie, it was not nearly loud enough for a high energy group like the Black Eyed Peas.

Use the Surround Sound System

The theater only played the sound through forward speakers, which was actually rather distracting given how we all expect theater surround-sound. Why didn't they use the surround sound system to help immerse us in the concert experience? This seems like a no-brainer.

Radio Edit?

Everyone was grooving along to Wil.I.Am's freestyle when his performance was interrupted by audio drop-outs; the seconds of complete silence were extremely jarring. At first I thought these were technical glitches, but after more followed during IMMA BE I realized that Fathom was trying, and failing, to edit curse words and phrases out of the live stream. I say failing because quite a few sh*ts, f*cks, mo*f*ers, and n*gg*s slipped though.

Fathom: you are not my mother. Absolutely do not censor the audio from the concert -- the raw audio is why we're there!

More Immersion

Part of the concert experience is being part of an excited, hyped-up crowd. We, on the other hand, were in a large movie theater with about 30 other people scattered about. The video quality and production were excellent, almost too good -- I had to remind myself that the concert was live and not a pre-produced event. To that end, Fathom should make an effort to make theater viewers more a part of the concert experience, to make the experience more immersive. Here are some ideas:

• Crowd Noise: As I mentioned the theater did not use the surround sound. They should pipe in crowd noise through the side and rear speakers, make it seem like we have front rows seats. Sure, this is akin to the laugh-track trick, but the laugh-track trick works.
• Live Cameras: Incorporate the theater-viewers into the artist's experience, too! Have cameras in the theaters to broadcast live theater-streams to the concert so the artists can see and interact with them as well as with the crowd in front of them.

Can you Say 3D?

Broadcasting live concerts in 3D has the potential of being a killer app. Wil.I.Am mentioned that the concert was being filmed and viewed in 3D, but this was not an option for us. In-theater 3D concerts could be amazingly immersive.