COVID Concerts-

Coping with streaming concerts in the lockdown era

The Merced Symphony Association posted a holiday concert to YouTube in late December. Portions of the concert, including this scene pictured, originated from the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland. Photo: Merced Symphony Association.

My wife and I were not big concert goers.

If we got out to an occasional Playhouse Merced community theater production or even a rare music performance at the Gallo Center in Modesto we consider ourselves lucky.

Like many people before March 2020, we took a lot of things for granted.

COVID 19 changed all that.

The virus altered everything. Face masks, social distancing, hand sanitizer, health department guidelines, vaccine wait lists, and the list goes on.

Add enjoying live music to that list.

I don’t mean the YouTube videos and Facebook concerts we’ve been seeing. They are fine, but nothing will replace being in the concert space as the music happens.

The Grand Ole Opry was the first to engage fans with live streaming concerts at the start of the COVID lockdown. Live weekly concerts have been streamed on Facebook since the start of the lockdown. Photo: Grand Ole Opry

In Nashville, Tennessee, the country music showcase Grand Ole Opry started streaming one-hour weekly concerts as soon as the crisis started in March 2020.

The shows were presented with the blessing of the local health department and that included no in-person audience at first as well as other COVID protocols.

The Opry prides itself on holding consecutive weekly shows since 1925. The Opry had a tradition to keep up. The weekly concerts have been broadcast on radio station WSM every week for ninety-five years.

The group Ellas will be performing live via live stream on January 29 as part of the UC Merced upSTART series.

Besides helping us remain safe by keeping us away from public venues, the move to streaming performances has provided other benefits.

Shows on social media sites allow viewers to comment as the performance takes place; providing instant feedback and a sense of shared experience.

Being able to pause to tend to an interruption is nice. There’s no need to dress up for the show. There’s also no chance of being annoyed by a rude attendee who either talks, texts, or gets up from their seat during the performance.

But I’m willing to accept some of those annoyances in exchange for having live music where I can be part of the audience in person.

It may take a little while longer for those days to return, but we are patient.

Once live in-person performances resume, I promise myself never to take them for granted.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

His new book Can Do Californians is available at barnesandnoble.com and at lulu.com