I’m grateful that we have the technology to do 'at home' concerts, but come on—without the audience, it’s just one looooong soundcheck. | | | | Laura Marling in Hyde Park, London, July 12, 2019.
(Gus Stewart/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I’m grateful that we have the technology to do 'at home' concerts, but come on—without the audience, it’s just one looooong soundcheck.”
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| | rantnrave:// PA or FM? That's one of the novel decisions facing concert promoters this summer in the strange but optimistic new world of drive-in concerts. Do fans stay inside their cars and hear the show via an FM transmission to their radios, or will they be allowed to sit on lawn chairs next to their cars and listen through a traditional PA system? VARIETY's CHRIS WILLMAN reports that promoters may ramp up from FM to PA as local governments get more comfortable (they hope) with the idea of fans stepping outside their vehicles. Baseball's TEXAS RANGERS, who have already sold out a four-day series of shows next month by the likes of PAT GREEN and the ELI YOUNG BAND at GLOBE LIFE FIELD in Arlington, Texas, are leaning toward caution: all-acoustic shows (to reduce crew requirements) transmitted to car radios and, Willman writes, "The sets will be strictly limited to 60 minutes each, in part to keep patrons from needing to use the facilities." LIVE NATION, which is considering staging drive-in shows in the parking lots of 40-plus amphitheaters it runs across the US, is hoping to get fans outside, which means right next to their car, save for bathroom visits. Bathrooms are definitely key to all this... Another way to go in the current climate is a ticketed, limited-capacity livestream. LAURA MARLING is performing from London in June 6 for a ticketed audience of North American fans; the date coincides with what would have been the last show of her North American tour. Ticketholders will get a private YOUTUBE link, and geo-blocking will keep non-North Americans out. The show was a quick sellout, and now a second show has been added the same night for UK and EU fans. Tickets, via DICE, are £12 plus an optional charity donation... The good news for the industry in both of those scenarios is that there's clear demand for live performance. While polls have shown fans are largely reluctant to attend any kind of live event until either a treatment or cure for Covid-19 is available, it appears that carefully communicated safety precautions can get them out of their houses—and maybe even out of their cars. What neither polls nor promoters can say for sure, of course, is how the reopening of the US and other countries will go over the coming months, and in what direction the general live-entertainment curve is headed... The global music industry is going to take a bath this year either way, according to a GOLDMAN SACHS forecast released Wednesday, and the live piece of the business is going to feel the brunt of it. Goldman Sachs predicts a 25 percent industry-wide downturn in 2020, but a whopping 75 percent slump in the live business. Silver lining: Looking way further ahead, the bank is forecasting a near-doubling of music revenue by the year 2030, with the most likely beneficiaries including UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP, SONY MUSIC, SPOTIFY, TENCENT and YOUTUBE. (Is it possible to accurately forecast the economy 10 years out from a worldwide pandemic that's still raging? Are you asking me? I lean toward no)... In the kinda sorta traditional world of actually going to a club to actually hear a live band in front of you on an actual stage, POLLSTAR's ANDY GENSLER chats via ZOOM with country-rocker TRAVIS MCCREADY and MIKE BROWN, who runs TEMPLE LIVE in Fort Smith, Arkansas, about the former's much-talked-about Monday night show. Brown says the small (by design) crowd was respectful of all safety precautions. McCready says it was surprisingly loud... PARADIGM CEO SAM GORES says reports that his agency is discussing selling its music assets to CASEY WASSERMAN are "not accurate. There is no agreement to sell Paradigm, nor is any sale imminent." HITS DAILY DOUBLE says a deal is "nearly done"; Variety says it "may never come to fruition"... There's a new photo of ROBERT JOHNSON... "L TO THE OG," the rap that KENDALL ROY performed for dad LOGAN ROY on season 2 of SUCCESSION, has been officially released... RIP ROBERT "ROCKY" FORD JR. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| Spotify is trying to do to the open podcast world what Google did to publishers. | | |
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| Keith Urban's glee at performing for socially distanced fans at a drive-in theater in Tennessee may soon be shared by more major artists, as a Live Nation plan to use amphitheater parking areas for shows could bring the automotive concert concept into the mainstream. | | |
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| The burgeoning experimental icon isn’t letting a global pandemic stop her from basking in her joy and putting out her poppiest music yet. | | |
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| How the famed one-man band is handling these months of isolation. | | |
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| Goldman Sachs expects global music revenues to tumble by up to 25% in 2020, largely due to widespread disruption across all sectors of the industry due to the coronavirus crisis. Analysts at the U.S. investment bank said in a research note that live music would be "severely impacted" by the postponement and cancellation of events this year, leading to a 75% drop in revenue. | | |
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| YouTube is hosting a Prince and the Revolution concert from March 30, 1985, in Syracuse, New York. It is the most incredible Prince thing on the internet. | | |
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| Eamonn Forde examines how the pandemic is affecting music royalties and speaks to experts to learn what this means for the future of the industry. | | |
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| The almost total cessation of live music has sent shockwaves throughout the wider music industry. Though live companies are clearly at the epicentre, labels and streaming services are the in the blast radius too as the gaping hole left in most artists’ income is causing them to question their other income sources, streaming especially – with both labels and DSPs in the sights. | | |
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| From home confinement, the rapper and rabble-rouser has once again taken over pop culture by poking powerful figures and delighting in the results. | | |
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| Even if he didn’t sell his soul at the Crossroads, the massively influential Mississippi guitarist remains shrouded in mystery. An upcoming memoir from his 94-year-old stepsister brings new depth to Johnson’s mythos-and the third verified picture of him in existence. | | |
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| Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider and Afrobeat originator Tony Allen’s stories are perpetually intertwined, a postscript to one late-20th-century chapter of collective rhythm making. | | |
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| I’ve been on the look-out for a platform that empowers artists in my corner of music, and why I wanted to find out more about new project Currents. For now, it’s a website that is built around direct subscriptions to artists, who can create lists of music and upload their own, like OnlyFans or Patreon but focused exclusively on music. | | |
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| With the Music Venue Trust’s #SaveOurVenues campaign trying to secure the future of the DIY and grassroots scene, we speak to the venues affected by the lockdown. | | |
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| Island Records’ One Love Covid-19 Relief Auction in aid of NHS Charities Together and Feeding America takes place tomorrow (May 21). | | |
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| Many within the industry are actively fighting to remake the industry in this moment of crisis. | | |
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| The 24-year-old’s single “My Truck” is the most viable fusion of rural and urban since “Old Town Road,” and his new EP pushes the sound even further. | | |
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| Dylan Brady lives in Los Angeles, and Laura Les in Chicago—they work remotely, and send files back and forth to each other. In this episode, the two of them break down how they made the song “Money Machine.” | | |
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| Last week, mainstay Deep Ellum club Lizard Lounge announced that it would be closing its doors after 28 years. Passing through the venue's doors and getting a taste of late-night debauchery was a rite of passage for anyone in DFW who could claim to have any sort of edge. | | |
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| From the moment Little Richard shouted “A wop bop a loo bop a wop bam boom!” in 1955, the world was never the same. His life was full of painful internal conflict, but no one better defined the freedom and raw energy of rock & roll. | | |
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