Bootleggers Ball

Jamming with the superfans who dedicate their lives to recording live shows and sharing their spoils with anyone who'll listen.

Photos by Jessica Bal

“At least my apartment now has an elevator,” Scott Bernstein puffs as he hoists a suitcase containing roughly $10,000 worth of audio recording equipment up the subway stairs at Bedford Avenue. “This was way worse when I had a fifth floor walkup.”

Bernstein rolls his luggage into Brooklyn Bowl, the massive music venue in Williamsburg, an hour before the first set of the night. Tuesday is show four of Bowlive, an eight-night residency by three-piece funky favorite Soulive, who invite a slew of special guests to jam with them over the sound of pins toppling a few feet away.

Coworkers at The New York Times, where the forty-two-year-old Bernstein spends weekdays in content management system development, often see his bulky baggage and mistakenly assume he’s heading out of town on concert days. He shrugs. “Then some people want to know more about it, and I’ll tell them if they’re interested.”