setlist-fpx

setlist.fm via curl + fpx (no MCP)

setlist.fm is hybrid: reads and writes use two different surfaces.

• Reads — a documented public REST API (api.setlist.fm/rest) keyed by an x-api-key header. Plain curl, no browser, no fpx.
• Writes — the only mutation setlist.fm offers is the site's "I was there" attendance toggle, and it exists only on the logged-in website (www.setlist.fm, server-rendered Apache Wicket), not the REST API. There's no login form to script — the credential is your browser's session cookie. fpx lifts that cookie out of your signed-in tab once; every actual request afterward is plain curl carrying it. No bridge round-trip per call.

This is the same data/actions the setlist_* MCP tools expose, reached with curl instead of a running server.

Part 1 — reads (curl + API key)

One-time setup

Apply for a free key at https://www.setlist.fm/settings/api, non-commercial use only (see API terms below), then:

export SETLIST_API_KEY=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

Core call

curl -s 'https://api.setlist.fm/rest/1.0/search/artists?artistName=Radiohead' \
  -H "x-api-key: $SETLIST_API_KEY" -H 'Accept: application/json' \
  | jq '.artist[] | {name, mbid, url}'

Accept: application/json is required — the API serves XML otherwise. Optional Accept-Language: en|es|fr|de|pt|tr|it|pl localizes city/country names. Standard tier is ~2 req/sec, 1440/day — a 429 means slow down.

Dates are dd-MM-yyyy on the wire (NOT ISO) for date search params and lastUpdated (yyyyMMddHHmmss); eventDate comes back the same way in responses — convert both directions yourself (the MCP does this for you via dmyToIso/isoToDmy; a shell one-liner: date -j -f '%Y-%m-%d' '+%d-%m-%Y' on macOS).

The full request catalog (all 15 read endpoints, params, and jq projections) is in references/rest-api.md.

The one rule: chain ids, don't guess them

Every entity is keyed by an id you get from a search: artists by mbid (MusicBrainz id), setlists by setlistId, venues by venueId, cities by geoId. Search first, then feed the id into the matching get/setlists endpoint. Got a setlist.fm URL instead of an id? The id is the trailing hex token before .html, e.g. .../setlist/.../...-4ba8a766.html → 4ba8a766 — no fetch needed.