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Amazon is live streaming a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis concert this Friday

Amazon is live streaming a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis concert this Friday

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The hip-hop duo are taking the stage at midnight ET

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Amazon is partnering with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to live stream an intimate hometown show the hip-hop duo is playing in Seattle this Friday night. Macklemore and Lewis are playing the show to celebrate the release of their new LP This Unruly Mess I've Made, and Amazon is taking its first step into the world of musical live streaming. (It's following in the footsteps of its live stream of President Obama's final State of the Union address last month.) The concert will be available in most major browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft's Edge and Internet Explorer, and even Opera — on both PCs and Macs, and you don't need an Amazon Prime subscription to watch. (It's available around the world, too — no need to live in a country with Amazon Prime Music.) The stream isn't accessible on mobile devices, though, and it won't be archived. If you want to see it, you'll have to be ready when the concert starts at midnight ET on Friday. (The live stream itself is kicking off at 10:30PM.)

Macklemore and Lewis' show is by no means a new frontier for live streaming concerts; it won't even be the highest-profile show made available online this month. Festivals like Coachella live stream their weekend bacchanals using YouTube, and artists like Prince have live streamed concerts in partnership with streaming services like Tidal in recent months. (It's typical for these shows to be offered to the public with or without a subscription to the service in question because it's good promotional fodder.)

Of course, the live streamed event that looms largest in the public imagination is Kanye West's unveiling of Yeezy Season 3 and The Life of Pablo earlier this month, a show that reportedly peaked at 20 million viewers. It'll be a huge shock if Macklemore and Lewis approach that kind of viewership, but the very existence of this partnership is a step in the right direction for Amazon. If a few listeners decide to check out This Unruly Mess I've Made on Amazon Prime Music after the show wraps, the live stream can be considered a success.