Hi, I’m Mikita.
See you at the show.

Hi, I’m Mikita

I was born and raised in Minsk, Belarus, and music has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I’ve always been into alternative guitar music - different kinds of metal, rock, and everything around them. I started going to concerts back in Belarus, although, as you can imagine, there weren’t nearly as many shows there as in bigger music cities.

Over the years, I listened to hundreds of bands that I never really expected to see live. I travelled to a few festivals in Europe and got to see some of them there, but after moving to Montreal, Canada, things changed completely.

Montreal has an incredible live music scene, and I started going to shows a lot. By now, I’ve probably been to more than a hundred concerts, not even counting festivals.

Why I started preparing for concerts

When I go to a concert, I’m usually there because of the headliner. But I’m also interested in the opening bands.

The problem is simple: if I don’t know a band, I usually have no idea what I should listen to before the show.

From my experience, live music is much easier to appreciate when you’re at least a little familiar with the songs. This is especially true if you’re not a die-hard fan who already knows every track.

And with heavier music, it can make an even bigger difference. Depending on the venue and the acoustics, guitars, drums and vocals can sometimes blend into a wall of sound. If you’ve heard the songs before, it’s much easier to understand what’s happening and enjoy the performance.

So before concerts, I started listening to recent setlists.

If I didn’t know an artist at all, this gave me a pretty good idea of what I was actually going to hear that night. And quite often, I discovered a band I ended up really liking.

Some artists I first discovered as opening acts later became bands I listened to regularly.

That’s one of my favourite things about live music: you come for one band and leave with two or three more to listen to.

A show feels different when you already know the songs.

The annoying part

Like many concertgoers, I’ve been using setlist.fm for years.

Eventually, I started taking those setlists and turning them into playlists before every show.

That works pretty well when there’s one artist.

But then you go to a concert with four or five bands.

Maybe you know the headliner but none of the openers. Maybe you’re interested in only two bands on the lineup. Or maybe there’s one opening band in particular that you really don’t want to miss.

Now you’re looking up every artist separately, checking recent setlists, figuring out which one is representative, creating playlists, and trying to guess when each band will actually go on stage.

Sometimes there isn’t even a recent setlist available, especially for smaller artists.

After doing this over and over again, I got tired of all the manual work.

So I built Concert Ready.

What is Concert Ready?

The idea is simple: prepare for a concert in a few clicks.

Find your show, hit «Get ready», and Concert Ready does the rest.

Instead of creating a separate playlist for every artist, you can get one playlist covering the whole lineup. If there’s an artist you’re not interested in, just leave them out.

You can also see an estimated schedule for the night.

That’s another problem I’ve had many times myself. Maybe there are five bands playing, but I’m mainly interested in the last two. Or maybe there’s an opener in the middle of the lineup that I really want to see.

Instead of sitting there wondering when they’ll actually start, Concert Ready gives you an estimate so you can better plan when to arrive.

It’s still an estimate - concerts aren’t exactly known for operating with Swiss watch precision - but it’s a lot better than guessing.

From a concertgoer, for concertgoers

That’s really what Concert Ready is.

It’s something I originally wanted for myself after years of going to shows, discovering bands, building playlists and trying to figure out schedules.

Now I’m making it available to everyone else.

I hope it helps you discover new artists, know more of the songs when you walk into a venue, and ultimately enjoy your concerts a little more.

If you try it, I’d love to hear what you think - what works, what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see next.

See you at the show.

Mikita 🤘