Monday, July 6, 2020

Live music in the time of pandemic

Anyone who knows me well knows that going to concerts is one of my most favorite things to do. Perhaps my favorite thing of all if the concert is a really really good one.

I haven't been to a concert in more than four months. The last one I attended was on February 27 - We Were Promised Jetpacks at the Grog Shop, a show I won tickets to from a local college radio station. It was a fun show but not one that would have stood out to me... if not for, well, you know.

Certainly not being able to go to concerts is not as bad as becoming horribly ill or dying from a deadly pandemic, but it is most definitely something missing in my life. Something missing in a lot of people's lives. Especially the people, the musicians and the venue owners and employees, who make their living by bringing the amazing thing that is live music into other people's lives. That's a toll of the pandemic that doesn't get as much attention as a lot of other aspects but shouldn't be forgotten.

Thank goodness for live stream concerts. Although nothing lives up to the magical experience of seeing a great show in person, they have done a lot to fill the void for the music obsessed like me.

I'll always remember the first really good quarantine show I saw. Hard to believe that it was three months ago now. That seems simultaneously too long and too short - in many ways time seems to have lost all meaning during this strange age. In the early days of quarantine, all the live stream shows were basically just someone in their bedroom or living room singing and playing an acoustic guitar with often dodgy video and/or audio quality. And these were nice to have, what with the sudden and glaring absence of real live music or other outside-the-home entertainment options in all our lives. But they were such a pale imitation.

Weakened Friends changed that with their "Where The Heart Is" digital concert on April 4.

Do you remember what life was like back in early April? How everything was just a constant stream of fear and horror and panic and anxiety? And yes, perhaps in some ways it's still like that, in a resurgent way these last couple of weeks. But now we've at least had time to adapt to this strange new reality. We at least have a better understanding of what's going on. Back then it was all so novel and so confusing and so scary. Anything that could provide some small measure of escape was almost miraculous.

When Weakened Friends announced their show, I was really excited. The Portland, Maine-based three piece rock band are one of my favorites I've discovered in the last few years, but not only that, they hold a special place in my heart. Their show at Mahall's last November was the first that my girlfriend Megan and I ever attended together, and for a couple who loves music as much as we both do, that's a big deal! We had only known each other for a little more than a month at the time, and it was a fantastic show and a memorable evening for both of us.

So I was definitely looking forward to the digital concert, but I had little idea what was in store - it blew away any expectations I might have had. Weakened Friends decided that if they were going to do a quarantine show, they were going to go all out. They weren't going to do a standard bedroom acoustic stream. They weren't going to skimp on the production values. The three members of the band conveniently all live in a house together. So they rigged the house up with a professional quality sound system. They created a setup with guitarist/lead vocalist Sonia Sturino in a bedroom, bassist/backing vocalist Annie Hoffman in the kitchen, and drummer Adam Hand in the living room, each fully plugged in, each captured by their own video feed. And they played a full on, no holds barred rock show with professional quality video and sound from three separate rooms inside their own house. I'd never seen anything like it before and haven't seen anything like it since.





Oh, and there was a cat cam!



I remember sitting at my kitchen table, watching the show on my laptop, earbuds in, texting Megan who was watching at her house. I commented that I thought watching this show was something I'd always remember, and three months later I'm sure that I was right.

What a strange time that was. What a strange time it still is, but the strangeness was heightened then. For fifty minutes full of energy and emotion and hooks and riffs and impassioned vocals, Weakened Friends gave us a much needed respite from the insanity and horror of late March/early April 2020.

It really was something special. Better than many shows I've seen in person. Every visible vibration of the kitchen cam was like a little bit of healing rock energy transmitted through the Internet and into my apartment.


The show can still be watched today. I rewatched it recently and it was as good as I remembered and also a very interesting time capsule of those early days of the pandemic. None of us had any solid idea back then what was going to happen. I doubt, though, that many of us honestly expected that three months later the situation in the U.S. would be getting even worse at the same time that most other countries would be getting the pandemic under much better control. But I guess it's not really surprising now that it's all unfolded before us.

I remember back then thinking that July was the earliest I thought we might get to go back to attending real concerts in person. Nope. Sigh.

But back to the Weakened Friends digital concert. If you like the band and haven't seen this concert yet, what are you waiting for? Go watch it now! If you don't know the band but like rock music (kind of '90s alt rock influenced with rawly emotional vocals - Sturino does some remarkable things with her voice that really set the band apart from the pack) and want to see something unique and amazing, check it out too. They are such a great band and I'm grateful their music came into my life.


"Where The Heart Is" was the first really standout quarantine concert, and I think it's still the most memorable, definitely the most unique, and probably still the best. But there have been some other really good ones in the months since.

Megan and I have really enjoyed watching performances from other artists we love like Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, and Phoebe Bridgers. Sometimes we watch together in person, sometimes we watch "virtually together." Either way it's a great form of connection both between the two of us and between the musicians and all their fans. This technology we have that allows us to have these experiences really is a marvelous thing and something we shouldn't take for granted. Think about what life must have been like during the 1918 flu pandemic when there were so many fewer entertainment options available in one's home and there was no way to have a face to face interaction with a person in a different location.

The most recent memorable live stream show and the first to rival Weakened Friends in my book came from another artist who many of you already know also holds a very special place in my heart, Andrew Bird. Megan and I were in fact supposed to be traveling to Colorado recently to see him perform at Red Rocks. His first real live stream concert was obviously not a true replacement for the transcendent experience that show surely would have been, but it was at the very least a good consolation prize.

I really liked the sentiments Bird expressed in his email announcing the concert:

As a rule I prefer to play before I speak, but these are strange times. I’m doing my first live stream concert on Sunday, June the 28th, the day I was supposed to headline the Hollywood Bowl. This will be at Old Style, my favorite guitar shop, a slightly more intimate venue. There will be an audience of Gibsons, Guilds and Gretchs. I assure you, we are working hard to make it of the highest quality and worthy of your time and hard-earned money. Of course it’s no substitute for the communal ritual of attending a show with your fellow citizens, but every time a new medium emerges I only consider doing it when I think there’s something new and interesting that can come of it.

Doing these daily songs on Instagram has been a godsend for me. It still feels like performance, rough and scrappy and true to how I’m feeling that morning. Plowing through my catalogue daily is doing something to my playing that I think will come through in this concert. It also helps me feel some purpose. It helps me feel connected with you in a time when this sacred ritual we share cannot happen.

The feeling of connection, concerts as a sacred ritual... it really gets to the heart of the matter of how I feel about all this.

Bird set up for his solo performance in the Old Style Guitar Shop with a captive audience of guitars wearing hats and wigs.


It was very whimsical and charming in a very Andrew Bird way. He had some other fun touches like piping in audience noise and reacting to it as if it was real. He has always been such a unique individual and performer in a way that I find incredibly endearing. And he is also incredibly talented. Of course, if you've experienced any of his wonderful performances, or if you've heard me talk about them before, you know this.

The first time I saw him live I was so in awe of his wizardry with using looping pedals to build up intricate songs out of different violin and guitar parts all by himself in a live setting. In more recent years most of his live shows have moved to more of a full band experience. They're still amazing but in a different way. This solo show was therefore a nice throwback.

He also made sure the show was worth the price of "admission" by playing a full length set clocking in at around an hour and forty-five minutes, easily the longest quarantine live stream show I've seen. Maybe that sounds like a long time to watch someone play a concert over the Internet... but I was mesmerized the whole way through. I really just adore this man and his musical talents.


The setlist was a great mix of songs from throughout Bird's lengthy and prolific career. I was especially thrilled that he included "Why," by request. It's a song that Bird just so elevates live, drawing out its length and engaging in a dialogue with himself (about excessive passivity in a relationship) in a manner that no one but Bird, with all his endearing quirkiness, could pull off so well.

What a much needed respite from the horrors of our current reality.

I can only imagine how emotionally powerful it will be when Megan and I get to once more see artists like Weakened Friends, Angel Olsen, and Andrew Bird live and in person. Whenever that will be. For now I'm so glad we have these streaming shows to bring the joy and wonder of live music into our homes and into our socially distanced lives.

This isn't a novel observation, but I really hope that people will remember from this whole experience of isolation just how much value the arts - music and other forms - bring to our lives. And will realize that the artists who create all these great things should be supported financially. I think that musician is one of the most important jobs in the world, and it's sadly one where the odds of making a good living are horribly stacked against you. And that was before the pandemic, which is making it all so much worse.

There are so many people who think nothing of spending ten dollars on a drink at a bar or on a fast food lunch many times in just the course of a single week, but won't spend ten dollars to buy an album that so much hard work and passion went into making. I wish that would change.

If you miss concerts, check out some of these live stream shows. More and more are being added to the calendar as the prospects of musicians going on tour in the not-too-distant future in this country depressingly grow dimmer and dimmer. And support the National Independent Venue Association. It's such an important cause.

One day we'll get to go to real concerts again and it will be such an amazing day but until then let's be grateful for the gift of music and let's share it with each other and let's appreciate and support all the wonderful musicians who bring that gift to us.