The Drum Channel announced today that they are officially in public beta and, as a celebration of that fact (and as a way to get people to create profiles on the site), they are hosting a live online simulcast of the Buddy Rich Memorial Concert in New York City this coming Saturday.

Getting access to the concert will require you to create an account on the site. Just enter your name and the username and password you want to use. No other real personal information is required and please don't enter real credit card information into the form! The site is not yet setup with an SSL key and any personal financial information you enter will not be encrypted when you submit it. Simply use the default credit card information they provide in the form and you'll be all set.

The memorial concert for Buddy will take place at 7:30 PM Eastern/4:30 Pacific, with pre-show interviews and such starting at 6:00 PM Eastern/3:00 PM Pacific this Saturday, October 18th. The drummer line-up includes Neil Peart, Chad Smith, Terry Bozzio with Efrain Toro, Tommy Igoe, John Blackwell and Nick Rich. With an assembled group of drummers like that, this should be a great concert and I highly recommend you invest the two minutes it takes to setup and account so you can watch it online.