When we see a black-eyed Susan peeking out between the cracks in the concrete of a parking lot, we’re reminded that life manages to find a way in almost any situation. Live music seems to be doing the same during the pandemic. Concerts are taking place in a variety of environments and in a range of configurations. The question then isn’t really whether live music will find a way to survive but rather, how much of this new way of doing it will become part of the post-pandemic landscape, and how much of The Before Time will return?
Drive-in Shows
The use of drive-in movie theaters as concert venues will certainly be memorable, if not sustainable. Keith Urban’s show at the Stardust Drive-In near Nashville in May was a self-described proof-of-concept show, and for the 125 or so cars — half the capacity of one of the theater’s two screens — and the front-line healthcare workers in and on them (a car makes a useful six-foot distancing marker) who the show was dedicated to, it was a real treat. Urban told a local news outlet that they wanted to keep it small, with minimal P.A. and lighting rigs, and just two musicians beside himself, one of whom, Jeff Linsenmaier, was essentially DJ-ing backing tracks (using two laptops that enabled him to edit tracks on the fly to extend choruses, verses, intro, which let the song structures flow as freely as they do during “real” concerts) while multi-instrumentalist Nathan Barlowe played keys and guitar. All three were 10 feet apart onstage.
The idea has caught on — Danish singer-songwriter Mads Langer recently performed to a crowd of 500 from a stage at a drive-in movie theater in Aarhus (the country’s second-largest city), where attendees listened to Langer’s set via in-car FM radio and could interact with him via Zoom. At Colorado’s Beanstalk Festival (June 26-27, 2020) at The Holiday Twin Drive-In in Fort Collins, plans called for guests to remain in their cars during performances while the artists would be projected onto the screen and concertgoers would also be able to listen to the performance via their vehicle’s FM radios.
Electronica artist Marc Rebillet announced a drive-in concert tour to five Midwest cities in a month. In fact, any venue with a large parking lot can get in on this action. The Texas Rangers announced plans to use parking lot “B” at its new Globe Life Field Stadium to host a series of drive-in “Concert in Your Car” shows this summer. Each concert will cost $40 per car, while special VIP packages with guaranteed access in the first two rows of the parking lot will cost $80 per vehicle. It’s not the traditional concert hall or club experience, and likely wouldn’t replace those once the pandemic is corralled, but at a time when the few concerts there are have moved to online and television, this model provides something far more tactile. These events can also be a boon to the venues: drive-in theater numbers in the U.S. have declined to barely 300 from a 1960s high of more than 4,000. This represents a new purpose for them, and the Rangers’ new $1.1 billion stadium has yet to host a baseball game, so a few hundred paying cars now and then can help keep the lights on.
Online
Streamed and cabled shows have gained traction, and once they’re showing useful monetization, they’ll likely survive this locked-down era in some form. Live concert streaming service LiveXLive announced the launch of a new pay-per-view live streaming platform for performances and events. Its new Pay-Per-View initiative will provide artists with revenue streams from ticket sales, fan tipping, digital meet & greets, merchandise sales and sponsorships. These take the form of tour and weekend passes ($39.99 and $19.99, respectively), with an a-la-carte option for single shows ($4.99). A growing number of artists whose tours were cancelled earlier this year are warming to the idea, like K-Pop idols BTS, who will be feature It’s been a long, hot summer, and it hasn’t been on the road. Instead, music artists and their technical teams have been hunkered down, sequestered by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the music venues that they’d be touring under normal circumstances closed, with very few exceptions. There have been the odd drive-in or home-based shows, but for live music, thousands of venues here and abroad in traditional touring circuits were the first to close and will be, unfortunately, the last to open.
That’s not to say, however, that everyone hasn’t been busy. This month, we’re looking over the shoulder and listening in to what some of FOH and monitorworld’s leading lights have been doing on their enforced summer vacations.
Reading Up
Many are using the time to increase and expand their knowledge base. “I spent the first part of it unplugged from the audio world,” Steve Cross, FOH for Greta Van Fleet, says, a bit wistfully. “But as time went on, I have started reading up on new tech and techniques, including Ken “Pooch” Van Druten’s YouTube channel with Chris Rabold. Sort of an opportunity to really [see] if my lifelong methods can be improved on or re-thought a little bit.”
Speaking of “Pooch” Van Druten, the FOH mixer for Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, Guns N’ Roses and Linkin Park has developed a popular YouTube channel (plsn.me/FOH-Pch) partnering with Chris Rabold (FOH for artists such as Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Kenney Chesney and Bruno Mars), plainly titled Pooch & Rabold. “Chris and I have been friends for years, and we would have conversations on the phone about once every two weeks just talking about audio,” Pooch tells FOH. “When the Covid thing hit, I thought it would be great if people could be a fly on the wall for those conversations. That’s how it started. Now we are looking at it becoming a brand to give back to the sound community.”
Van Druten also does a once-a-week live stream with monitor Kevin “Tater” McCarthy (Stone Temple Pilots, Prophets of Rage, Linkin Park) called Wrong End of the Snake. He says the long-range strategy for the online shows is still developing — they could eventually grow to include master classes in live sound, online and in person, perhaps becoming the live-sound equivalent of Pensado’s Place, the online community around record engineer and mixer Dave Pensado. “Whatever it becomes, we are still enjoying it, and I am happy to share what knowledge I have with the sound community,” he adds.
Home is Where the Studio Is
Home studios also seem to be becoming jumping off points for more entrepreneurial ventures. For instance, Brett “Scoop” Blanden hasn’t been waiting for longtime client Lady Antebellum to finalize its name (they’re now officially “Lady A,” and a week before, The Dixie Chicks became The Chicks, reminding us that Covid-19 isn’t the only thing going on out there). Blanden’s also been teaching himself lighting and video systems operation online, getting deep into DMX and Art-Net. At the same time, he’s been turning the tracking space in his home studio in Nashville into a live-streaming environment. Known as Brett’s Place Live, it will also be part of establishing another new remote-production venture, to be known as the RPG Group, with some other audio pros in Nashville and elsewhere who are also looking for ways to get around Covid-19’s roadblocks.
“Brett’s Place Live will do live streaming, but it will also generate metrics for the artists who use it to help them find better places to tour in the future,” Blanden explains, adding that the RPG Group will focus more on technical solutions for large, multi-channel 48K streams over any distances.
Others have used the time to catch up on projects that can’t be handled from the road and can only be done by them. “The pandemic made me finish my mix room, which I had been procrastinating on,” says Paul David Hager, FOH mixer for Miley Cyrus, Beck, Devo and others. “I’ve been mixing video performances and singles for my artists. Having the ability to work from home has been extremely valuable.”
Bringing in the Dough
A few audio pros have moved far off the usual tracks. Zito, who’s mixed FOH for OneRepublic and Ariana Grande, and has a production-management business, is not going off half-baked, though it might just seem that way. “My wife and I started a pop-up sourdough cinnamon-roll bakery,” he reports. “We went from selling 50 rolls to over 300 a weekend, and we’ve sold over 1,000 rolls just in the last month!” Zito says the dough is bringing in enough dough to support his family during the downtime and letting them donate $.50 from each roll to Grammy’s MusiCares charity. “The support from the local and touring community has been amazing,” he adds. Check out their socials on Instagram @theZbakeryNashville.
From the outside, it may seem as though the live-sound/touring business had ground to a halt. But while the metal wheels on the bus haven’t been turning, the mental wheels of ambitious audio pros have been getting some serious traction. The class of 2020, so to speak, is going to come out of this mess smarter and better prepared than ever for what’s certain to be a very different business landscape for live music and live sound. As I’ve been saying all year now: You’re living through history — take notes.
