< of *course* we're time travelers
I was never in to the local band scene, despite living in a city that was full of them. It seemed like you just go to a pub on a Friday night, listen to what was going on, and bristle up against the true fans who have been religiously following the band for several years. The band would have a facebook page or a random url scribbled above a urinal.
Basically, I found the whole thing fun as an outsider, stumbling from pub to pub, but really damn hard to get into as a regular follower because of how much it relied on the internet for promotion. That being said, I've never seen a band live due to word of mouth, so I guess internet is the best option for this kind of thing.
I never did any of that for preferring recorded to live music. It's very rare I prefer a live version of a song to what I want to call its canonical version.