COVID Concerts: The Persistence of Performances in the Pandemic
Ever since the COVID-19 outbreak started in December or January, the world has become a scarier place, and after US lockdowns began in March, people have gotten creative in order to continue social gatherings. Somewhat unsurprisingly, a very creative section of the populous led the charge on adapting crowd activities to the new normal: musicians.
My Experience
Personally, I became aware of this trend on St. Patrick’s Day when I had the fortune to experience the Dropkick Murphy’s annual St. Patrick’s Day concert as a livestream. In the ensuing weeks, I began to notice digital performances from a number of my favorite music groups: The Tallest Man On Earth’s livestreams, Flogging Molly’s Fireside Session recordings, Clutch’s ticket-required Doom Saloon concerts, and so-on. Rather than outright cancelling tour activities and lapsing into inactivity beyond maintaining websites and continuing to produce new material, these artists were finding ways to adapt to the new environment and continue performing in front of audiences.
While not a secret that tours and the merchandise they help sell are the most lucrative aspects of a musical career, these digital concerts have a greatly reduced opportunity for profit and offer some interesting opportunities to connect with fans, so may be more altruistic than one would guess at a first glance. From the performances I’ve had the chance to enjoy, many of the artists seemed to be more focused on creating a comfortable rapport with their audience and offering an escape from the day-to-day fear and drudgery of the pandemic than making money. I think this is emblematic of the strange camaraderie that only a global event can generate, and that we’re seeing manifest in a multitude of human interest-style stories of people coming together to collaborate in new ways during these difficult times.
A Brief Survey
In the interest of a slightly more scientific approach, albeit not a very rigorous one, I took a quick cross-sectional observation of 10 active artists that I generated using a random list and noted any sort of performative content that occurred between the start of March and the present, drawing mostly on their Facebook pages. Of the 10 artists observed (Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Rolling Stones, Eminem, U2, Rihanna, The Weeknd), 7 engaged in some sort of performance during the pandemic, which supports that the artists I’d been following were not alone in their endeavor. Of those 7, 5 participated in the One World: Together At Home performance, which was a free event intended to encourage donations to various causes related to the pandemic, advertised as a way to bring people together to face a global problem affecting us all. While not necessarily what I would categorize as similar to the personalized content for connecting closely with fans that I’d observed, it definitely seems to have been done with the intent of creating a global camaraderie and not for the artist’s profit.
In fact, of the 7 artists who performed during the pandemic, only 1, U2, actually charged for a performance, and even then they had already participated in Together At Home. This seems to strongly support the idea that while the performances might have still been used to drive merchandise or music sales, many artists were focused more on the performance and doing some good for people than lining their pockets.
For all the critique that gets levied against the music industry, it’s hard to look at these performers continuing to create music and put on a show for their fans without charging admission and call it part of some ruthlessly capitalistic machine trying to strip the working class of their money and stifle the creative spirit. I can’t say for certain that it’s not, but maybe, just maybe, COVID concerts and pandemic performances are a stellar example of how people can come together in tough times, make use of whatever resources they have, and try to do something that makes the world feel a little bit better.
