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TrickyBird

Audio site

Unblock Bandcamp, from Discover to a full track

If Bandcamp will not load, the block is on the network in front of you, not on Bandcamp’s side. Open it through TrickyBird instead: paste the address, press Launch, and the site arrives in the same tab, on TrickyBird’s own address, with no download and no account.

A filter rarely has anything against Bandcamp itself. It sits in the music and audio-streaming category, so when a network switches that category off, Bandcamp goes with it. The advice that follows is always to download an app, which is the one step a managed laptop or a locked-down phone will not allow, and TrickyBird needs no install at all. In mainland China the block is national rather than a category filter. GreatFire has recorded interference with bandcamp.com from mainland China since 7 May 2012, and its most recent test, on 7 February 2026, found it blocked.

Music is the reason to open Bandcamp, so the audio is what we checked hardest. A full-length track, not a preview clip, plays signed out through the proxy, and the pages around it come with their cover art. That was on a desktop, sign-in form included.

What to expect from Bandcamp

A full-length track, not a preview clip, plays signed out through TrickyBird, and the pages around it come with their cover art. That is what we heard on a desktop.

Is bandcamp.com blocked on your network?

The check asks bandcamp.com for one small file directly from your connection, not through TrickyBird, so your network can see that request like any direct visit.

One of our addresses, with the site’s encoded into it

The site loads in the tab you are already in, and this address will not always look the same, since sometimes it is only numbers.

How does TrickyBird open Bandcamp?

Your browser never talks to Bandcamp. It talks to TrickyBird, which fetches the page, rewrites every link, cover image, and request in it to point back through its own address, and leaves a small script in the tab for whatever loads as you browse Discover or open an album. The address your browser uses is one of ours, with Bandcamp’s address encoded inside it rather than spelled out, which leaves a filter watching your network for that name nothing to match.

The audio is the part that usually breaks. Bandcamp serves a track as a plain MP3, but the address it comes from carries an expiry and a signature, and a proxy that rewrites the link around that signature invalidates it, so the player sits there and nothing starts. Those signatures survive here, which is why a track plays instead of stalling on the first request.

Once the page is running, nothing in it goes back to Bandcamp or to the host the audio sits on. On a network that blocks the site outright, that is what keeps a track from cutting out halfway.

What works on Bandcamp through TrickyBird?

Without an account you get the site as most people use it: the home page, the Discover browse page, album and track pages, artist pages with their full discographies, Bandcamp Daily, and free full-length streaming of whatever an artist has made free to play. Every artist on Bandcamp lives on their own subdomain, and stepping from the main site across to one of those pages works the same way.

There is no software to add and no account to make, so a work laptop under someone else’s policy opens Bandcamp the way it opens any other page. If your listening is spread around, Audiomack, SoundCloud, and Spotify have pages of their own.

Some releases play in full a few times and then Bandcamp asks you to buy them. That is Bandcamp’s own control, and it passes through untouched, exactly as it would in any browser. TrickyBird is for reaching a public site your network blocks, and for keeping your IP address away from that site. It is not a way to get a record without buying it, and not a way past a paywall or copyright.

Is your Bandcamp listening private through TrickyBird?

What reaches Bandcamp is TrickyBird’s address, not yours. What your network sees is a connection to TrickyBird, because your browser does not connect to bandcamp.com: that address is carried inside one of ours, encoded rather than spelled out.

On our side, the edge keeps a short access log to run the service and stop abuse: a shortened form of your IP address, the hostname of the site you connected to, and basic response details, kept for at most 48 hours. Which albums you played is not recorded, and there is no TrickyBird account for any of it to attach to. Our privacy page has the full picture.

Questions

Do full tracks actually play, or does the page just load?

They play. Bandcamp serves a track as a plain MP3 from an address carrying an expiry and a signature, and that signature is what a proxy usually breaks. It survives here, so a full-length track, not a preview clip, started signed out and played, rather than buffering forever after the page had drawn.

Do I need a Bandcamp account to listen?

No. The home page, Discover, album and track pages, artist discographies, and Bandcamp Daily all open signed out, and the free full-length streaming artists offer plays without signing in. TrickyBird has no sign-up of its own either. An account matters for your collection and for buying music, and that stays between you and Bandcamp.

Does it work on a laptop I am not allowed to install anything on?

Yes. Everything happens inside the tab you already have open, so there is no download and no admin prompt. The advice you get when a site is blocked, install an app, is exactly what a managed laptop refuses, and this needs none of it.

Is Bandcamp blocked in mainland China?

Yes. GreatFire has recorded interference with bandcamp.com from mainland China since 7 May 2012, and its most recent test, on 7 February 2026, found the site blocked. The sustained block ordinary listeners noticed began on 16 February 2021 and was reported at the time by Vice, Resident Advisor, The Quietus, RADII, and China Digital Times.

Do artist pages on their own subdomains open too?

Yes. Every Bandcamp artist gets their own subdomain, so an artist page is a different host from the main site, and a proxy has to follow that move. It does here. We stepped from the main site across to an artist’s discography ourselves, and it opened with its cover art and its full list of releases, the same as on a direct visit.

Is opening Bandcamp through TrickyBird legal?

This is general information, not legal advice. Reaching a public site is usually a question of your network’s or your employer’s rules rather than the law, and those rules differ by place. Mainland China, where Bandcamp is blocked nationally, is a different situation from a filter at the office. Check the policy you are under, and do not use TrickyBird for piracy or to get past a purchase.

Other sites people unblock

Open Bandcamp now

Press the button and the site opens in this tab. You do not need to install anything or create an account.