Life was a lot simpler in 1994. Forrest Gump was the movie of the year, hardly anyone had a cell phone and most of us had at least one plaid shirt in our closet. I doubt I even knew the Internet existed. But The Rolling Stones did. And in 1994 they did something that no other popular band had done before; they broadcast a portion of their November 18th Dallas concert live on the Internet! True story.

The Stones broadcast 5 songs on “the global computer Internet” using something that was awkwardly-named MBone. Done primarily as a publicity stunt to drive pay-per-view sales of their Showtime Voodoo Lounge concert special, The Stones unintentionally ushered in a new era of how people consume music. According to this quote from Stephan Fitch, president of the multimedia computer group Thinking Pictures (which helped produce the broadcast) The Stones weren’t exactly on-board from the beginning:

“The only way I could sell this idea to the Stones was to say to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: ‘Look, this is really cool, and it’s never been done before. And if you don’t do it, I’ll do it with Aerosmith.’ “

The footage was incredibly choppy, the audio was poor and only about 200 people were able to tune in at the time but it sure is neat to look at how far the Internet has progressed in 22 years!

If only MBone had caught on it could have replaced YouTube in our vernacular and as the world’s most popular website. And people think Twitter is a silly name. I have no idea what happens if you type “MBone” into Google in 2016 because I’m afraid it’s NSFW and would get me in trouble.

To learn more about this technological and musical tipping point, check out this newsreel compilation below, which features some great unintentional comedy whenever any of the newscasters begin talking about the “World Wide Web” or anything else technology related.

Rolling Stones MBone Broadcast Nov 18, 1994 from Thinking Pictures, Inc. on Vimeo.

Filed under: 1994, 1st webcast, 969jackfm, jackfm, MBone, On This Day, Rolling Stones, Voodoo Lounge Tour