`Instant Live' to offer concert CDs for more bands

The "Instant Live" program -- where live CDs are made available within minutes after a show ends -- is being expanded this summer to cover such touring acts as KISS, Jewel, the Cowboy Junkies, and Peter Frampton. Also, the Allman Brothers have again signed up after being part of the debut run of "Instant Live" last summer, according to Steve Simon, who heads the program from the Cambridge office of Clear Channel Entertainment.

"We may have one or two other possible acts this summer," Simon says. "My target was three amphitheater tours this summer, and we're already doing that."

The "Instant Live" program started at the Paradise Rock Club last year with such acts as the Samples and Kay Hanley, before building to the theater and amphitheater level with the Allman Brothers and moe. The focus was on jam bands last year, but now "there's more of a variety of acts -- young and old, and mainstream and jam," Simon says.

Sales have approached 1,000 units per night. The profits are split between the band and Clear Channel, which stations 25 to 30 CD burners backstage that can each duplicate 48 minutes of music in one minute. For the bigger bands, that translates to a double- or triple-CD set that costs up to $25 on site. And Clear Channel now has four portable clusters of CD burners that operate out of Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta, and San Francisco and can be moved around those regions at will. A digital downloading program will also be introduced soon.

There's a retail component as well, done in partnership with Newbury Comics' new Toothface Distribution. "We're distributing about 25 percent of the 100 recordings that have been made so far," Newbury co-owner Mike Dreese says. He notes that live sets by moe. and the Allmans are each approaching combined sales of 10,000 copies in stores.