Believe it or not, today marks the 7th anniversary for So Many Roads To Ease My Soul. How long is that? Well, when I started this blog, my twin boys were still in grade school. Two months ago, they started their junior year in high school. Talk about how time flies.
When I made my first post on this blog some 72 months ago, I had no idea what it would grow into. I thought I'd post a show every now and then, a couple of folks would stop by, and within a few months, it would run its course. How wrong I was!
Since November 11, 2009, we've posted almost 3000 different concerts from almost 200 different artists. Those posts have included such monumental events as Woodstock, Monterrey Pop, Knebworth and Live Aid. They also included a host of personal moments, concerts I attended that have stayed with me, and helped inspire me to write this blog. We've grown from a 2 column layout to a 3 column one, have added numerous links to set lists, artwork, rock history, etc., and have been through 18 versions of our front page banner. We've added a monthly theme linking together every concert we post in a given month. We've even built a small business selling personalized concert certificates at RockLive365 to help support the site. We average over 750 visitors a day and have had folks from 175 different countries stop by. We've had almost 1.8 million unique visitors, and almost than 9 million page views. Why, we even have 128 followers, visitors who have signed up to get notified every day of any new content that we post.
I'm still amazed that so many folks have taken an interest in my little place on the web. Amazed and very appreciative. It takes a significant investment of time and effort to keep So Many Roads going. Finding shows to post, especially great sounding shows, isn't easy. Researching each post to provide some historical context involves numerous hours of searching the web. Of course, writing something coherent, that will actually interest folks who stop by, just may be the hardest part. Then of course, are all the issues in dealing with hosts for the shows, such as the Megaupload shutdown, Mediafire deleting all my uploads, and Depositfiles deleting shows just days after they were uploaded. On top of that, I've to deal with the folks who would rather criticize the blog rather than appreciate all the music and history provided fee of charge. Folks who complain about what hosts are used, what bands I post, and how FLAC is so much better than mp3, all while pointing out how much better the blog would be if they were running it. Of course, not one of them would ever put in the time or effort to actually launch and maintain a site of their own. Frustrating to say the least.
Given all the above, I sometimes wonder why the hell I write this blog, but then I remember 3 things. First, I love music, history and writing, so this place lets me pursue those passions.
Second, whenever I get disgruntled, I wind up getting a comment like the one below and it makes it all worthwhile:
Anonymous said... "This is such a GREAT site!!! Definitely one of the top 5 sites I have ever seen...MUCH THANKS from me, and from the many shy folks who have never left a comment :-)"
Third, I've made some great Internet friends while running this site, a list so long now that I'm afraid if I try to name everyone I might miss someone. I don't want to do that and offend anyone accidentally but please know that no words could ever express my appreciation for all of you who have commented, shared insights, and helped me grow this place. I look forward to year 8 and beyond as we continue this "long strange trip".
Enjoy this month's theme and if you have appreciated the music this blog has posted over the last 7 years, please make a donation to one of the many organizations fighting world hunger that we've featured this month. especially my personal favorite, WhyHunger. Any amount would be great and it would mean a lot to me.
Thanks again for helping make So Many Roads what it is today!