The crowd goes wild as the Hedrons finish yet another storming set. But the all-girl band’s triumph is not taking place in any club you would have heard of; this gig is in a virtual world with an animated version of the real thing.

Next week the Hedrons will become the first British group to host a virtual concert in Second Life, the online fantasy world, where players live out their secret desires in an alternative existence. Second Life has its own clubs, shops, cur-rency and social etiquette. And with 740,000 users, it is now the place for rising musicians to win a whole new audience.

The Hedrons have already built up a following by putting their music on the MySpace, Bebo and YouTube websites, as well as by touring.

“We all have our Second Life characters so we thought the next stage must be to play a live virtual gig,” the singer Tippi said. “We can reach so many more people.”

The quartet have designed animated avatars who will play at 7.30pm next Monday at the virtual Hedro Dome while the real Hedrons perform live in a studio. Their movements will be filmed and synchronised with the 3-D figures by computer design experts in the Netherlands.

Audience members are invited to register their characters with Second Life, flirt with the band at their “aftershow” and buy virtual merchandise from their stand at the Dome. Transactions in Second Life are worth £1.5 million — that’s in real money — each month.

Virtual reality and computer games are becoming the most cost-effective means of launching a new artist. The London dance group Infadels, for example, will get global exposure after their track Can’t Get Enough was chosen to join Keane and the Feeling on the soundtrack of the new Fifa 07 EA Sports football game. Saints Row, the latest gang-warfare hit, has 130 songs on 12 radio stations, ranging from rap, hip-hop and rock to classical, which the player controls.

Some titles have links that can be used to pause the game and buy the soundtrack selection via iTunes. That capability will be a key feature in the next generation of game consoles.

But commercial instincts are infecting the Utopian principles of Second Life. Nike is now selling footwear which, it says, will make characters run faster, and adidas wants to open a virtual store. Transactions involving virtual products or services came to £185,000 in one 24-hour period. The advertising giants Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Leo Burnett have opened Second Life agencies to track the use of virtual products to learn about how to sell them in real life.

WILDEST DREAMS

• Second Life has its own economy and a currency called Linden Dollars. For £5.60 a month players get a pot of online currency. More can be bought from the site or other players
• Linden Dollars can be converted to pounds and dollars at online exchanges. In China “gold farmers” play to earn virtual loot which they sell for real money
• Clothing is the most sought after item, at 40 per cent of transactions. Some British gamers make £50,000 a year selling virtual goods and services

  For more information:
  secondlife.com/join/
  www.myspace.com/thehedrons