FACING THE MUSIC OF COVID-19: THE LIVE-STREAMED RISE OF HOMEMADE FESTIVALS (UK EDITION)
The world did not see this coming (though Bill Gates himself had been warning us). We were all just going about our days, minding our own business, most of us probably ignored the first reports about the virus erupting in China. China? That’s far away, what are you talking about? Well, we all know the rest.
The beginning of the end
When the world stopped we tried to remain brave. We only cried a little accepting refunds for all our concert tickets. As hard to believe as it was, one by one, artists cancelled their shows in the first half of 2020 and there is still much uncertainty about the future. In Europe stars like Halsey or Maluma started their tours but were forced to cancel the rest of them very early. Craig David, Jimmy Eat World and My Chemical Romance completely rescheduled their shows to next year. Avril Lavigne and Adam Lambert didn’t seem to even have an option to postpone their events. As of now, The Pussycat Dolls moved their April UK tour to October and remain one of only a handful of acts that still hope to give their fans the entertainment they now crave more than ever.
Needless to say, the realm of festivals has also been severely affected by the pandemic. BST Hyde Park, Reading & Leeds and many more festivals have been cancelled with others such as Tallinn Music Week in Estonia or the Serbian EXIT Festival are now rescheduled for late summer. It’s especially sad for Glastonbury, which celebrates its 50th birthday this year. For this special anniversary the BBC iPlayer will launch a pop-up Glastonbury channel with classic performances for us to re-watch on demand on June 24–28. In the meantime, enjoy a collection of 50 festival years in photos.
Tough decisions had to be made and a lot of strict regulations had to be introduced. Even if everything goes according to plan, we cannot expect to experience our favorite events the same way as in the pre-Corona reality. With restrictions being eased around Europe as we speak, social distancing will still very much be in place for the foreseeable future.
Click HERE for the full list of cancelled and rescheduled shows and festivals and HERE to find out all about the 2021 festival season.
Necessity, the mother of invention
Humans can get very creative when disaster strikes (and we have footage of swimming on our skateboards in the living room to prove it). Many celebrities have been preoccupied with their new-found passion for jigsaw puzzles and added face masks to their official merchandise, however, a few pivotal moments might have just changed our perception of the music experience forever.
We’ve had an opportunity to connect on an unprecedented scale. We found novel ways to send music around the world, put together remote music videos and made live-streaming the new gigging. United with the whole world we’ve enjoyed unstaged improvised performances from our favorite artists from the comfort of our couch. These have been some brighter moments in all this chaos.
Yes, the reports are rather grim, the pandemic has had a devastating effect on the music industry with thousands of UK jobs now in jeopardy and doubt hanging above us like a dark cloud. But we will beat this virus and we will heal from all this uncertainty. In fact, the process has already began in a heartwarming circle of life atmosphere. The NHS staff, who put themselves at risk to save lives every day, will be rewarded for their hard work with a series of free concerts planned for the end of this year. Among others, Liam Gallagher and the Script have already announced dates.
We need music and we need each other. It takes more than this virus to bring our cultural joy to a halt. What happened in Denmark is probably the best example of our collective indestructible spirit. Mads Langer, Danish singer and songwriter, performed the first ever drive-in concert in April. The social-distancing audience enjoyed his music from the safety of their cars and blew their horns to applaud. Now, that’s what we call a pioneering mindset!
To release or not to release: creativity meets strategy
This enforced downtime proved to be conflicting for artists who had to either bend under the pressures of the pandemic and postpone releasing their albums (Lady Gaga’s Chromatica) or go ahead with original dates without the usual marketing and promotion machinery (Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia). And then there are the hyperactive minds who write and record entire albums during lockdown (Charlie XCX’s how I’m feeling now) — hats off!
One of the obstacles of releasing new music in lockdown is that without the usual commute circumstances music streaming went slightly down. Jonathan Milanes, an alternative pop-rock artist from London and music producer at Soundprise, points out why artists will now have to face new entrepreneurial challenges.
With the live music sector heading into a heavy transition in the coming months, a lot of musicians have been focusing on digital marketing and live streaming in an effort to acquire new fans and build stronger connections with the existing ones. Artists will now have to learn to build a business around their projects in the digital realm, which we are obviously heading into.
So how is our inspiration coping with so much additional focus on more ordinary aspects of our artistry? Jonathan admits his own creativity has been up and down in this crazy time.
I’ve released 3 singles during the pandemic and have done proper evaluation of how I can keep sustaining my creativity in lockdown so it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, I think self-isolation helped me focus on my inner voice. On the other hand, there were times when I just couldn’t create, I didn’t have the motivation. Whenever I get those feelings, I revert to a quote I once read, “the most important thing about creativity is the process; to fall in love with the act of trying to create, trying to work, not the outcome.”
Getting our creative juices flowing is indeed important as we will most likely have to pivot a few more times before we can relax. According to Jonathan, there is no going back to the way things were in the music industry and we all feel that. The only thing certain in life is change and the earlier musicians can adapt to it, the better off they’ll be long-term, he adds. Well, the time has come to face the music and trust the magic of new beginnings.
Find Jonathan Milanes → Spotify, Soundprise, Instagram
This article was originally published on Ellenwood EP.
