Re: Concert lists -- DC metro area

It seems like live music is beginning again in earnest, between omicron waning and vaccines and booster requirements. I have just spent time rummaging through Pollstar. Here is what I put in my calendar, not that I have fixed commitments — and I am sure I’ll miss most of these! But it will surely increase my interest if I know friends are planning to attend (masked, vaxxed, and boostered, of course)!

2/11 Bonny Light Horseman and Anaïs Mitchell at Strathmore
2/14 Squirrel Flower at Songbyrd (did this sell out? I bet it will)
3/1 Superchunk at Black Cat
3/2 Bob Mould at Barns at Wolf Trap
3/22 Low at Miracle Theatre
3/27 Sons of Kemet at Union Stage
4/23 Fruit Bats at 9:30, Pedro the Lion at Black Cat, darn it
4/24 Godspeed You! Black Emperor at 9:30
4/25 Aimee Mann at Birchmere, Weather Station at Union Stage (I have a ticket for this; was postponed from January), darn it
5/8 Tori Amos at MGM Grand
5/13-5/14 Haim and Faye Webster at The Anthem
5/23 The Who at Capital One Arena
5/25 Eels at Fillmore Silver Spring
6/11 Aldous Harding at Miracle Theater
6/19 Tears for Fears with Garbage at Merriweather Post Pavilion
9/21 Pet Shop Boys/New Order at Merriweather Post Pavilion

I think the live music happening is crazy. I have tickets for Nick Cave and Warren Ellis in my town in three weeks and it ain't happening. There's no way I'm going to be in a petri box with 2000 other people right now. Worse, I have Sparks tickets for Atlanta three weeks later. Can't do it. SPARKS! Hurts. Ditching all of these tickets.

My local club that still exists has Boy Harsher and [this REALLY hurts] The Stick Men in April. And that's a SEATED show!!!! The club's calendar is still rife with cancelled or postponed shows, which gives me hope. I might do an outdoors show if it came to that. We did one in October before omicron and it was onsite test/vax passport + masks but my wife and I were the only ones masked. I suspect that it would be the same in a much tighter, dangerous, club. Rock clubs by their very nature attract risk-takers. Judging by the percentage of masked shoppers in my county where there's a mandate, I suspect that 70% would be a riotously positive outcome, but statistically not enough for my peace of mind.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2022 09:32AM by Post-Punk Monk.

The last shows I saw were the New Pornographers at the very tail end of November, prior to the omicron surge, which has now waned in the DC metro area. And our mask and vaccine compliance is better than a lot of places in the country, although I am still wary — far more wary than many of the fellow concertgoers. But every venue in DC requires proof of vaccination, at least two shots. Honestly they should require booster mandates too, but that seems implausible. And I wore two masks at the prior shows I was at, and would continue to do so. Some venues here are not serving food or alcohol, which must be a huge hit to their bottom line, but makes it far easier to require proper mask wearing.

zwirnm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And I wore two masks
> at the prior shows I was at, and would continue to
> do so. Some venues here are not serving food or
> alcohol, which must be a huge hit to their bottom
> line, but makes it far easier to require proper
> mask wearing.


No food and beverage??!! That would never happen!! That's the reason for shows. If that were the case at the Grey Eagle then I'd be tempted. But with the virulence of omicron, I upgraded from dual surgical/fabric to KN95, and then to N95 and it's a whole world of difference at the top of the mask chain. You gotta up your mask game.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/09/2022 09:37AM by Post-Punk Monk.

I have tix to four shows* coming up; the first one is next week. Overall, we feel pretty good about the precautions being taken by the venues in Seattle ... but if we have to cancel our plans for any of them, we've made peace with that.

*One of the shows is Sparks ... and because of family issues/concerns, we have to give those tickets up. Heartbreaking, but oh well. (Anyone want them? I'll cut you a deal.)

I've been going to shows all along here in the DC area. I've been vaxxed and boostered and wear a mask indoors everywhere and so far so good. Actually, the entire family got omicron at Xmas time but that came from my son when he went to an Eagles game. I've been to shows with no one wearing a mask except me and the staff (Fleshtones) to large ones with sporadic mask wearing (King Crimson). When I saw Bob Mould last fall, he was very adamant that everyone wear a mask but most artists don't seem to care.

Michael, I envy you, I don't really have that big a list of shows I want to see so far and when I do there's conflicts - Kim Gordon is playing the same night as Gary Numan. But since I've seen Numan several times, Gordon gets the nod.

I haven't let Covid slow me down from anything in life. It's too short.

Anyway, I've got tix for the following in the Tampa area:

Steve Hackett, 4/22
Tears for Fears, 6/10
The Mission / Chameleons - 9/13

I had tix for Hoodoo Gurus in May, but they canceled their tour.

DC music lovers:
I have secured tickets for Taste of Iceland with Laufey | Anna Greta and DJ Hermigervil at Songbyrd DC on March 17, Sparks at The Lincoln Theatre, Washington DC on March 26, The Weather Station at Union Stage on April 25 (postponed from last month), and Midnight Oil in June. Since I am typically a terrible procrastinator on buying tickets, this is unusual foresight on my part.
Do I know people who’ll be at these shows?

Michael - I'll be at Sparks and Midnight Oil. Not planning to see Kim Gordon?

The Seattle music scene is heating back up pretty well these days, but I still don't have a lot of shows on my docket. The main problem, as far as my wife is concerned, doesn't involve CoVid safety as much as it does personal/physical safety. A lot of the parking garages in Seattle have closed, or curtailed their hours, since so much of the nightlife in the city was put on hold. As a result, in order to go to concerts at some of our favorite venues, we'll have to walk farther from where we parked ... on city sidewalks that are more clogged than ever with tent encampments.

"on city sidewalks that are more clogged than ever with tent encampments"

Am I missing something that's not getting news coverage on the other side of the continent? What is happening in Seattle?

Not just Seattle - it's also true here in Portland and many other West Coast cities. It's homeless camps though, not mass political occupations.

Back to the subject at hand, I too have been to a handful of shows. The clubs I've been to here in Portland are still requiring proof of vax and masking, so it has felt relatively safe.

We've had a taste of mass political occupation in Ottawa, but given the local winter temperatures, we try to move our homeless indoors - at least in the winter time.

I haven't been to a concert in years, but it's also a function of this city not being on the map for most touring bands. Bands from Europe or the U.S. will usually limit themselves to Montreal and Toronto, maybe Vancouver if they hit the west coast. Canadian tours are expensive for local bands, so they haven't fully revved up yet as we're still into limited capacity at most venues.

> Not just Seattle - it's also true here in Portland and many other West Coast cities.
> It's homeless camps though, not mass political occupations.

The homeless problem already was pretty significant in Seattle before CoVid hit. (There are lots of reasons why, but I don't want to turn this thread -- or any other thread -- into a sociopolitical discussion.) But when the pandemic crippled a lot of the nightlife, it left large swaths of downtown Seattle more sparsely occupied after dark. The homeless population apparently saw this as new real estate.

When I went to the Burger Boogaloo festival in 2019 -- the year before the truth about Burger Records hit the fan -- I couldn't help but notice the considerable homeless population in Oakland. I remember saying to myself, "Whoa, this town is like Seattle plus Portland." (For those outside the West Coast, you can take it from Rhett and me: that's saying something.) After two more days in the other city by the bay, though, I realized, "No ... this town is more like Seattle times Portland."