BarMusicLive for AI and developers

Let an AI assistant or your own app answer "what live music is on" from BarMusicLive's listings. Read-only, free, no account and no key.

Connect in one step

Give your assistant this address. It is a remote Model Context Protocol server: nothing to install, no account, no key.

https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php

• Claude (web, desktop and mobile): add a custom connector and paste the address.
• Claude Code:

  claude mcp add --transport http barmusiclive https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php

• Cursor: in ~/.cursor/mcp.json (or the project’s .cursor/mcp.json):

  {
    "mcpServers": {
      "barmusiclive": {
        "url": "https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php"
      }
    }
  }

• VS Code: in .vscode/mcp.json:

  {
    "servers": {
      "barmusiclive": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php"
      }
    }
  }

• Any other app that supports remote MCP servers over Streamable HTTP: paste the address where it asks for a server URL.
• Claude Desktop, installed locally: the one-click bundle on BarMusicLive for AI assistants has the same tools.

Then ask: “What live music is on in Pensacola this weekend?”, “Where does Otis Walker Band play next?” or “Which venues near Huntsville have shows tonight?”

Tools

All six are read-only, and the same as the downloadable server, word for word.

Every result carries the BarMusicLive link for the show, venue or artist. Please give people that link, and tell them to confirm times with the venue.

Resources, prompts and completion

• Resources: bml://about (coverage, freshness, how to cite), bml://feeds (the JSON feeds and their fields), and the templates bml://venue/{slug} and bml://artist/{slug}.
• Prompts: whats_on (town, when), plan_a_night_out (town, date, style) and artist_tour (artist).
• Completion: suggests town and artist names for those prompts.

Protocol

• Versions: 2026-07-28, 2025-11-25, 2025-06-18, 2025-03-26, 2024-11-05.
• 2026-07-28 is stateless: no initialize. Send MCP-Protocol-Version, Mcp-Method and, for a tool, prompt or resource, Mcp-Name; they must match the body (error -32020 if not). server/discover lists versions and capabilities.
• Earlier versions: initialize first as usual. No session is kept, so no Mcp-Session-Id is issued or needed; every request stands alone.
• Transport: Streamable HTTP, POST only, JSON responses. No event stream: GET answers 405. Batches (protocol 2025-03-26 and earlier only) up to 5 messages; each message counts toward the limits.
• Errors: -32700 parse, -32600 invalid request, -32601 unknown method, -32602 bad params or unknown tool, -32002 unknown resource, -32022 unsupported version (HTTP 400, with the supported list), -32029 rate limit (HTTP 429 with Retry-After). A bad tool argument comes back as a readable tool result with isError: true.

Try it from a terminal (current protocol):

curl -s https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -H 'MCP-Protocol-Version: 2026-07-28' \
  -H 'Mcp-Method: tools/call' -H 'Mcp-Name: find_shows' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/call",
       "params":{"name":"find_shows","arguments":{"town":"Huntsville, AL"}}}'

Or with an earlier protocol, starting a conversation:

curl -s https://barmusiclive.com/api/mcp/v1.php \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Accept: application/json, text/event-stream' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"initialize",
       "params":{"protocolVersion":"2025-06-18","capabilities":{},
                 "clientInfo":{"name":"my-app","version":"1.0"}}}'

Limits

• 60 requests a minute and 5,000 a day from one address (IPv6 counted per /64), and 600 a minute from one IPv6 network (/48). Beyond that: HTTP 429 with Retry-After; please wait that long.
• A search uses at most its first 8 words.
• Request body up to 64 KB. Up to 100 rows per result.
• Listings run about five weeks ahead and are rebuilt when the site is updated. Each result says when its data was built.

Without MCP: the JSON feeds

The same data as three plain files, for any app or script. Each lists its own column names; every row is an array in that order.

• /api/v1/upcoming.json: every upcoming show.
• /api/v1/venues.json: every published venue, with map coordinates where known.
• /api/v1/artists.json: every published artist.

curl -s https://barmusiclive.com/api/v1/upcoming.json
# {"built":"…","through":"…","fields":["date","start","title","url","venue",
#   "venue_name","town_name","town","artists"],"shows":[["2026-11-14","19:00",…],…]}

Calendars: every venue, artist and town page offers a subscription (/cal/{venue,artist,town}/{slug}.ics). Venues and bands can also show their dates on their own site with the widget offered on their page.

Discovery files

• MCP server card (the MCP registry’s server-card format).
• OpenAPI 3.1 description of the feeds and the MCP endpoint.
• llms.txt: a plain-text guide to the whole site for language models.

What it does not do

• It never changes anything. No posting, voting, accounts or member content, and nothing from the Community page.
• It holds no personal information: listings are public venue, artist and show details only.
• It does not fetch other websites or read files; resources are the four listed above.
• It does not remember you. No cookies, no sessions. The rate limit keeps a daily count against a keyed one-way hash of the address, and old days are cleared. This server stores nothing you ask; like every website, the web host’s own access log records the address, time and page requested, and keeps it for a month or two.

Using the data

Use it to help people find live music. Please link each show, venue or artist to its BarMusicLive page, and do not present the listings as your own. Listings come from venues, artists and fans and are checked before they are published, but plans change: times are the venue’s local time and should be confirmed with the venue.

Something wrong, or a security concern? Contact us.