My Favorite Bands' Favorite Bands

Here’s the story of a little website I built for myself, but thought I would share with others… and then realized I definitely only built it for myself.

I love live music. I am pretty choosy about what kind of recorded music I listen to, but I will happily listen to the worst band if I can be in the same room with them, and feel the bass vibrate with my actual body. I love a live show.

And while they’re always kind of a crapshoot, I do really like to hear the opening acts. I show up to concerts on time!

The very first concert ticket I bought myself was for the REM Monster tour, in 1995. The opener for that show as a little British band I’d never heard of called Radiohead.

SO: I’m interested! If you like a band, what kind of bands open for that band?

I designed (and vibecoded) a little app:

This would be a perfect little app: connect your Spotify* account, get a listening history. Find the bands you listen to the most. Analyze their touring schedule. Build a playlist of which bands open for them.

And it worked!

It’s not perfect (sometimes it finds people that play the same festival, or even just the same venue on the same date, and confuses things). But it’s already surfaced some new-to-me music.

I was all excited to share this, and then found out: Spotify doesn’t actually allow this. Their API has two modes: build for yourself, or become a big partner. My Big Partner application was rejected (you have to have millions of users and serious revenue before they consider you).

So it only works… for my Spotify account.