Memories
Photos and videos
Attach your own photos and videos to each gig, so they sit with the night they belong to instead of getting buried in the camera roll.
Digital gig diary
Your gig diary, minus the shoebox
If you've ever kept a gig diary, you know the feeling of flicking back through it: the band you saw before they got big, the support act you can't place any more, the night the bar ran out of lager. StubStash turns that habit into a digital gig diary on your Android phone, with room for the photos, prices and setlists a notebook never had space for.
A British habit
The gig diary tradition
Plenty of us grew up with some version of a gig log. A school exercise book with a line for every show. A biro list on the inside cover of a diary. Ticket stubs pinned to a corkboard, then shoved in a shoebox under the bed when the corkboard ran out. Later it became a note on your phone that just says "2018: Milk Teeth, Deaf Institute" and nothing else.
The details people used to write down were usually the same handful:
- The band, the venue and the date
- Who was on first, if you got there in time
- What the ticket cost (and moaning about the booking fee)
- A few songs you remembered from the set
- Who you went with, and a mark out of ten
The trouble is that paper fades, stubs from thermal printers go blank, and notes apps get lost when you change phone. E-tickets made it worse: there's often no stub at all now, just a QR code in an email you'll never find again. That's why a lot of gig-goers are looking for a gig diary app that keeps the spirit of the old notebook but holds on to everything properly.
What digital adds
What a gig diary app adds to the notebook
Setlists
Setlist.fm links
Add a direct Setlist.fm link to any concert and relive the set in one tap, instead of trying to remember the third song from memory.
Support acts
Every band on the bill
Log support acts alongside the headliner. Years later, they're often the bit of the night you'd have forgotten.
Money
Ticket prices
Record what you paid for every show. It's oddly satisfying to look back at an £18.00 ticket from a few years ago.
Verdict
Your rating
Give each gig your own rating, the same way you'd have scribbled a mark out of ten in the margin.
Context
Tour titles and dates
Save the tour name and exact date, so you know whether it was the album launch run or the one where they played the old stuff.
Small rooms count
A gig journal for the local scene
A good gig journal isn't just arena nights at Co-op Live. It's the Tuesday at a 200-capacity room where four bands played to forty people, the free entry night upstairs at a pub, the band your mate's cousin drums in. Those are the gigs that disappear fastest from memory, because nobody else was writing them down.
StubStash treats every show the same. As an example, a Manchester gig-goer's diary might include Milk Teeth at The Deaf Institute with Fang Club and Nervus in support, Temples at The White Hotel, Lime Garden at Gorilla and Electric Wizard at Albert Hall.
Your venues, A to Z
Every gig you log builds your Venue Directory: an A to Z of every venue you've been to, with the number of shows and artists you've seen at each. The Artist Directory does the same for bands, showing when, where and how many times you've seen them. It's the bit a paper gig diary could never do without a lot of tallying.
Getting started
From shoebox to digital gig diary
- 01
Empty the box
Get out the old stubs, wristbands, diaries and phone notes. Anything with a band, venue or date on it is a starting point.
- 02
Fill the gaps
Search your email for ticket confirmations, check old bank statements, look at the dates on your gig photos, and check any attended list on Setlist.fm.
- 03
Log the gigs
Add each show to StubStash with the headliner, support acts, venue, date and price. Add photos, videos, a rating and a Setlist.fm link where you have them.
- 04
Keep it going
Log new gigs on the way home while the details are fresh, and add shows you've got tickets for so they're waiting for you.
Looking back
Make your gig diary something you actually read
The point of keeping a record of gigs is the looking back. A notebook only gets opened when you happen to find it in a drawer. A digital gig diary lives on the phone in your pocket, so it's there when someone in the pub asks "when did we see them again?"
StubStash Pro, an optional in-app upgrade, adds a Nostalgia Feed with On This Day throwbacks: open the app and see what you were watching on this date in previous years. It also gives quick access to your upcoming and most recent shows, and the whole app goes ad-free.
If you're more of a numbers person, Pro also includes charts, average ticket price and your most-seen artists. We cover that side on the concert stats page. And if your diary is full of muddy weekends, the festival tracker page explains how StubStash handles multi-day lineups.
Start with the gig you remember best
You don't need to log twenty years of shows in one evening. Start with the gig you still talk about, then the last one you went to, and work outwards. For a step-by-step approach to piecing together an old gig history, read our guide on how to remember every concert, or head back to the StubStash homepage to see everything the app does.
FAQ
Questions
What is a gig diary?
A gig diary is a personal record of the live music you've seen: who played, where, when, who supported and what you thought of it. People have kept them in notebooks, on the back of ticket stubs and in phone notes for decades.
Is StubStash a free gig diary app?
Yes. StubStash is free to download on Google Play and contains ads. An optional in-app upgrade, StubStash Pro, adds concert analytics, the On This Day nostalgia feed and removes ads.
What can I record for each gig?
For each concert you can log the headliner, support acts, tour title, venue, date, ticket price and your own rating. You can also attach photos and videos and add a direct Setlist.fm link for the setlist.
Can I add gigs I went to years ago?
Yes, you can log past gigs with their original dates, so an old paper gig diary or a box of ticket stubs can become the start of your digital one. Old email confirmations, bank statements and the dates on old photos are useful for filling in the gaps.
Does StubStash work on iPhone?
StubStash is an Android app, available on Google Play.
What is On This Day in StubStash?
On This Day is part of the Nostalgia Feed in StubStash Pro. It shows the gigs you went to on the same date in previous years.
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