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Thousands of rare videos of legendary rock bands are now on YouTube

Thousands of rare videos of legendary rock bands are now on YouTube

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The Who, playing in Toronto on May 6th, 1980. They're one of many bands in the live music archives.
The Who, playing in Toronto on May 6th, 1980. They're one of many bands in the live music archives.
Jean-Luc/Flickr

Google's YouTube is getting thousands of new videos featuring historic live concert footage courtesy of a new deal with Music Vault. The live music archive is adding more than 12,000 new clips to a collection that was already at about 1,600 videos. According to YouTube, that all adds up to 2,000 hours of exclusive footage that includes performances by The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, The Sex Pistols, The Who, and others. More will be added in daily shows, curated playlists, and what Google is promising will be original content.

Music Vault originally launched its YouTube channel in April without fanfare from Google. Its source footage is made up remastered and digitized tape transfers from Wolfgang's Vault, as well as more recent recordings from music sites Daytrotter and Paste Magazine.