The last thing I did before the coronavirus lockdown really take off was a single one of my scheduled St. Patrick's Day music gigs. My rock band just released the first single off our upcoming album, and we know that we won't be able to play any shows to promote it for at least another year. Meanwhile, my wife has spent the last twenty years working exclusively in live theatre.
Performing arts are a central part of our lives, but we both know that they won't be coming back for a while — at least, not in the way we're used to.
So I do commend the UK for at least trying to come up with safety guidelines for indoor performances. But, like with restaurants re-opening here in the US, I, personally, do not plan on indulging in these activities for a long time. This is both for my personal safety, and because I am ethically incapable of sitting there passively while heavily-armored hazmat suits serve me.
Still, I watched with morbid fascination as Frank Turner, one of my favorite songwriters, prepped for one the UK's pilot programs at the Clapham Grand musical hall in London in order to test out the country's socially distanced concert guidelines. Asking Turner to participate in this test drive was a particular curious choice — his charismatic performances are built on communal experience, on crowd participation and singalongs and forcing you to interact with strangers (with courtesy and consent). But all of that had to be stripped away in order to adhere to the coronavirus rules. Read the rest
