FEATURE:
Virtual Vitality
From the Stage/Home to the Screen: Live-Streamed and Virtual Gigs in 2020
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THIS year has almost come to an end…
IN THIS PHOTO: Laura Marling performing live at the Union Chapel Union Chapel, London in June of this year/PHOTO CREDIT: Lorne Thomson/Redferns
and we are looking ahead to 2021 and hoping that, at some point soon, there will be gigs happening. It may not be until the summer but things look like they will improve and start to reopen. For music fans, the live experience has been very different this year. There have been a few socially-distanced gigs, and many have got to experience a semblance of the old way through this method. Mostly, though, we have seen artists perform through virtual gigs. They have altered in terms of scale and scope but, whether it is from a near-empty venue or from their own home, there have been some great gigs from a range of artists! I do wonder whether, as I have said before, there will be a replacement of the traditional tour calendar next year so that artists can combine normal gigs with virtual ones. It will be interesting to see. Whilst there have been many virtual and live-streamed gigs this year, I just wanted to mention a few and cover the subject generally. Artists and fans have adapted superbly to the changing world, and in a year when we did not think that live music would be possible, technology has allowed us to at least feel a small rush – it is hard to replicate the roar and atmosphere that one gets from going to a busy venue! There have been a few fundraisers this year and events where many artists are joined up for a gig.
As NME reported back in October, a gig for Planned Parenthood pulled in some big names:
“Also playing the event were Margo Price, Devendra Banhart, Brittany Howard, Ezra Furman, Perfume Genius, Weyes Blood, Tenacious D and lots more, who gave performances of their own songs as well as a number of covers.
During Angel Olsen’s set, she covered George Harrison‘s ‘Beware Of Darkness’ and Blondie‘s ‘Heart Of Glass’.
Phoebe Bridgers, meanwhile, shared a tribute to the late John Prine, who died back in April from coronavirus complications”.
Róisín Murphy has been busy and, looking online, she has delivered these videos of her performing and entertaining her fans. Recently, she performed a live-streamed event to celebrate the launch of her new album, Róisín Machine, and she managed to replicate a lot of the drama, colourfulness and spectacle of her live shows. It must be hard for artists who have put out albums this year and were looking to tour them. Murphy is one artist who has been taking advantage of technology and has found a way of connecting with people. If you want to see which live-streamed gigs are coming up, then Billboard has it covered. I guess one of the strangest things with virtual gigs is the lack of audience interaction. That said, many artists have found ways of making the virtual experience beneficial and unique. As the Seattle Spectator wrote when they reviewed a recent Glass Animals virtual gig, there were some positives:
“Playing a diverse set of songs during their online show, Glass Animals “Live In The Internet” concert featured songs from their newest album, along with hits from their previous two, “Zaba” and “How To Be A Human Being.” Old fans and new fans alike were able to enjoy the show thanks to a proper blend of timeless hits such as “Gooey,” “Youth,” “The Other Side Of Paradise,” and new pop favorites “Tokyo Drifting” and “Tangerine.”
During the show, Glass Animals also hosted multiple special guests. Arlo Parks was able to share the stage, offering a verse on “Tangerine.” Denzel Curry also live streamed his rap verse on the song “Tokyo Drifting.” Without sharing any vocals, Kanah Flex instead offered a visual of live contortionism, which added to the mystique of “Hazey.”
Without the sensation of a sweaty room full of clamoring concert-goers, it was difficult to become fully immersed in the performance at times. Despite this, viewers received a few personal boons. Viewers were able to pause the stream and rewatch it anytime within the first three days after the show aired, enjoy the concert without having beers spilled on them and remain within the comfort of their own homes.
The show was best likened to a multi-set music video. Dancing around on a traditional stage, frontman Dave Bayley also explored an extended area to the left and right decorated with jungle undergrowth.
Glass Animals worked to create a concert atmosphere and provide entertainment, and lots of preparation went into the show. With mesmerizing visual effects and guest performances during the show, each song provided its own magical experience. Massive screens displaying moving backgrounds also accompanied each song”.
I like the fact that artists can perform these streamed gigs and bring a host of other artists onto the ‘stage’ – something that you do not really see during normal gigs. Other benefits of virtual gigs has been the variation and affordability. I think many people are seeing some artists play live that they might not have normally bothered with and, as seeing live-streamed gigs is free or costs very little, many people have seen more live performances this year than ever. There has been a range in terms of intimacy and scale. I will mention a couple of big stars who have provided different virtual gigs but for two huge bands, Foo Fighters and Metallica, having no crowd and putting out a gig on the Internet must be very strange in terms of how they perform. As Forbes wrote in their review, both offered fans something new during their recent gigs:
“Eight months later, with cases surging and no clue when live concerts will return in full, artists and the industry have definitely evolved the live stream exponentially since this began in March. Yesterday we got to see how much when two of the biggest rock bands in the world, Metallica and Foo Fighters (who share a publicist, Nasty Little Man, who cleverly called the day "Nasty Little Saturday" to media), did very different, but effective live streams.
The Foos stream was more of a traditional rock concert with the band taking the Roxy stage a little after 5 PM PST and delivering an hour of hits, from "Everlong" and "Best Of You" to the new "Shame Shame" and "Times Like These."
Besides the fact the band sounded in vintage form, even though Grohl commented at one point they didn't see each other for six months, what made the show so effective was Grohl not trying to pretend it was a normal gig. He had a lot of fun with the format, imploring fans at one point to sing along with their iPad to piss off neighbors or roommates they hate, and shared the crew singing along during "Best Of You."
Sure, getting to watch Metallica cover Deep Purple's "When A Blind Man Cries" and Bob Seger's "Turn The Page,' and bring some of their offspring out to play on "All Within My Hands" was a blast. But getting this level of intimacy with stadium headliners was way more special and unique than any song. And it showed why the live streams can work going forward, by bringing artists and fans together in new ways”.
Dua Lipa is an artist who put out an album this year. Future Nostalgia was released earlier in the year and is one of the best from 2020! Lipa is also putting together a great event later this month you can buy tickets for. Her Studio 2054 is, as NME explain, going to offer treats aplenty!
“Featuring tracks from her recent album ‘Future Nostalgia’, remix album ‘Club Future Nostalgia’ and her self-titled debut album, the event will see the singer “move through custom-built sets, surreal tv shows, roller discos, ecstatic raves, trashy rocker hangouts, voguing ballrooms and diva style dressing rooms” according to a press release.
Dubbed ‘Studio 2054’, the show will see the singer perform “a brand new multi-dimensional live experience” in a warehouse on November 27.
Accompanied by a cast of musicians, dancers, skaters, aerialists and acrobats, Dua will also be joined by a host of surprise superstar guests for the show”.
It has been interesting to see how artists have adapted since March in terms of using technology to connect with their fans. Many have had to wrestle with technical glitches and almost mind-boggling task of connecting themselves to thousands of fans! I would not attempt it myself but, from the somewhat modest Kitchen Discos that Sophie Ellis-Bextor started in March, to those where artists have been at venues, it has been a year of adaption and learning! Charli XCX is another artist who has been busy and performed at a recent virtual concert, and she has an album out to promote in the form of How I’m Feeling Now. She performed a recent gig from her house in the U.S. This review highlights the energy that artists like Charli XCX have brought during virtual gigs – and how technical glitches can get in the way at times:
“Charli’s energy is clearly high as she drops to the floor for the bright, bubbling ‘Detonate’ or hops from foot to foot as she segues seamlessly between the juddering ‘Anthems’ and the slow-building tenderness of ‘Visions’. But these moments make the constant lagging, freezing or skipping all the more frustrating, offering glimpses of the euphoria that could have been. It couldn’t be more fitting for 2020 if it tried.
After the sweet and gleaming ‘Forever’, she grabs her laptop and a seat, intending to answer some questions from fans in the chatroom. “I don’t see any questions so I don’t know what to do,” she says to someone off-screen. After filling for a minute, she instead jumps on Zoom to chat with some special guests – drag queens Miss Toto, The Juicy Love and the brilliantly named FKA Twink – before heading to her garden to DJ.
The final part of her Boiler Room appearance is still hit by tech gremlins, but is the kind of silly fun we’ve come to expect from Charli. Her “totally live” set sees her press play on her laptop and then flail around to her own songs and dance bangers like T2’s ‘Heartbroken’ and Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’. Her guests, still on Zoom, dance along in the bottom of the screen while Charli throws out a range of bizarre shout-outs, from “Jennifer Lopez’s pink diamond from Ben Affleck” to her quiet Hertfordshire hometown of Bishop’s Stortford”.
Laura Marling is one artist who has delivered a professional and high-quality gig from an empty venue. She performed at Union Chapel in June and, whilst it was clearer (in terms of the visuals) and had a different feel to many of the gigs we are seeing – where artists stream from their homes -, maybe that creates an odd sort of atmosphere? By all accounts, as The Guardian reported, there were definite advantages to Marling’s set – and it offers hope to struggling artists in the form of paid gigs:
“This gig’s hyper-focused stage management might not work for a different kind of artist – there’s little room for wild catharsis here – but it does, in spades, for Marling. There has long been something of a stiff upper lip to her – a very English reserve with which she has conveyed tales of passion from a kind of deep freeze.
This setting allows her to perform her songs with perfect control, creating an atmosphere broken only for a moment when a roadie hands Marling a guitar for What He Wrote. She only makes eye contact with the camera briefly, a few songs from the end, on Goodbye England; later, there is a brief half-smile.
I am going to end by bringing in an article that explores the financial implications of live-streamed gigs and how newcomers cannot offer the same sort of live experience and spectacle as bigger acts. That is something that has become apparent since the pandemic struck. It has been wonderful seeing these ambitious live shows but, for upcoming acts, their budget is less and they have had to provide a more stripped-back and homely show. It must be a bit of a nightmare trying to keep fans satisfied and earning what little money smaller acts can when they need to promote their music. Let’s hope that venues are give a substantial boost and financing next year as, for many, live-streamed gigs will not be viable in terms of earning a crust. That said, it has been fascinating watching all the different virtual performances and seeing how people have responded to them. I think there has been an amazing array and, whilst many yearn for venues to reopen, I would hate to see live-streamed and virtual gigs end.
One major artist who delivered a stunning gig recently is Billie Eilish. Her Hallowe’en virtual gig was seen by The Guardian:
“You suspect, though, that this mischievous, boundary-pushing artist would really love to provoke a neurological as well as an emotional reaction in her fans. The hairy nightmare vision stalks the 18-year-old singer as she moves around the stage – constructed as a hi-tech 3D green screen – singing You Should See Me in a Crown. A many-jointed leg just misses impaling Eilish by a hair’s breadth every time. The massive spider – one of a number of VR-like scenarios created for this streamed performance – recalls its smaller brethren from the track’s 2019 video. Tonight, its shape also visually echoes the two sharp-angled silhouetted rigs that bookend the singer: Eilish’s brother and writing partner Finneas on keyboards to the left and the duo’s drummer, Andrew Marshall, to the right. The track comprehensively nails Eilish’s best creepy trap-pop, her commitment to fear – either subjectively felt or objectively provoked – and her love of insider references.
There are, perhaps, a couple too many intimate songs in the tracklist. Of these, When the Party’s Over remains one of Eilish’s finest. A technically audacious composition, its nearest neighbour is the Bon Iver of 22, a Million; it’s no accident James Blake covered it seamlessly. Both are forerunners of what Eilish has brought to a younger, poppier audience. The combination of baggy clothes, big trainers, goth nightmares, spider fixations and pop tunes also brings to mind the aesthetic choices of the Cure.
Of the livelier, skin-prickling bangers – of which there are not enough – the finale, Bad Guy, is still the Billie Eilish anthem to beat. An earworm theme strapped to bags of attitude, it stands out even more tonight surrounded by all the lower-key atmospherics. But the song’s masterful surliness – “duh!” sneers Eilish – jars with the presence of a virtual luxury car driving around her at speed. It narrowly misses Eilish in a bling version of the spider’s earlier threat”.
I have only just skimmed the surface regarding the variety of live-streamed and virtual gigs that have gone down since March. There are more to come and, as there is no set date for venues returning, this new lifestyle is something that most artists will need to live with. In an interesting article, the Financial Times explained how this might be a new way of providing live sets for a long time and how, inevitably, the budget gap between large and smaller artists with dictate what sort of experience they can deliver:
“While questions will linger over whether the concept will have legs post-pandemic, it’s not hard to build a case that streamed gigs are here to stay. Over the past two decades concerts have got outrageously expensive and are generally only held in a few select cities bar the odd festival. In short — like the practice of being an artist — they’ve become a locus for time-rich affluent urbanites. Ticketed streamed shows, therefore, can be a great leveller for those unable, for whatever reason, to take a five-hour round trip to the nearest arena -- that’s if your favourite artist is even playing in your country. It may seem like a moot point but, for many, a live concert is a rare experience. Driift’s concerts has pulled viewers from 151 countries including Kiribati, Cape Verde and the Faroe Islands. Not exactly the sort of names you associate with your typical headline world tour. Even when touring resumes, it’s fair to speculate that one-off streamed concerts will remain enticing to artists, both as a way to access hard-to-reach fans and as a promotional tool.
So what of the economics? Driift have focused so far on putting on high-production-value shows, so that paying audiences get an experience that is not just your standard filmed concert experience. That, of course, carries a serious cost. We talked to Ric Salmon and Brian Message on Monday, who revealed that the typical all-in cost for a show so far has been in the £40k to £50k range. For a concert like former One Direction member Niall Horan’s at the weekend, which sold over 100,000 tickets, that’s not a problem.
For emerging artists at the bottom of the food chain, however, that cost could be prohibitive, potentially exasperating the already-widening income gap between the megastars and everyone else. The team at Driift, it must be said, are aware of this issue, and as well as trying to bring the costs down, hinted in the future they are planning to spread one concert’s costs over multiple artists — perhaps in the form of a showcase or “festival”
I think there are many positives regarding live-streamed gigs. As I said, many more people have been seeing live music and they have been able to see a host of different artists from the comfort of their own homes. Many gigs have been free but, even when you need to buy a ticket, I think the price is worth it as you are getting this unique experience and it is heartening to know that artists can make money at a hard time.
Of course, one loses the thrill of the crowds and the sort of buzz you get when in venues but, as a bridge between last year’s highs and the promise of next year, virtual and streamed gigs are allowing artists all around the world not only the chance to connect with their fans when they need it most, but to use technology to craft these very special and new types of sets. In terms of accessibility, people who could not normally go to a gig – those suffering certain disabilities for example – get to see live music. From Disco queens providing these awesome sets to the Foo Fighters providing something special, artists have adapted well! Not to end on a bummer note but, whilst live-streamed gigs have been awesome, there remains that problem with income. Not only have venues been hit by the lack of money and people coming in, but so many artists have lost the main source of income. A BBC article explains problems that have beset artists this year:
“Music creators will lose two-thirds of their income as a result of Covid-19, according to a new report by UK Music.
The effective shutdown of concerts and festivals will also cause live music revenues to fall by 85% in 2020.
The pandemic has dealt a "catastrophic blow" to the music industry, said UK Music's Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, with tens of thousands of jobs at risk.
However, he said that music was "an international success story in normal times" and can boom again.
The report predicted that musicians and songwriters would lose 65% of their income this year, rising to 80% for those most dependent on live performance and studio work.
Before the pandemic, a typical musician earned £23,059, well below the national average of £29,832, according to the Office of National Statistics. A 65% pay cut would mean an income of just £8,070.
The report predicted that musicians and songwriters would lose 65% of their income this year, rising to 80% for those most dependent on live performance and studio work.
Before the pandemic, a typical musician earned £23,059, well below the national average of £29,832, according to the Office of National Statistics. A 65% pay cut would mean an income of just £8,070”.
Despite some hardships and drawbacks, I think there have been some positives in a very difficult year. So many interesting and memorable live-streamed gigs have been produced - and it will be interesting to see how this evolves as we go into 2021. I also wonder whether there will be Christmas gigs and if we get some specials then. From big sets from major stars to those where artists let us into their homes, I think the live-streamed and virtual gigs have given fans something to smile about at…
A very dark time.