Please Feed the Animals — Your Performing Artists — an Endangered Species
Do Your Souls a Favor and Go to a Show
As the world continues to gradually come to its senses around ‘rona, live shows and tours are flooding the landscape, and thankfully so.
Along with restaurants and countless small businesses that didn’t possess diplomatic immunity to the pandemic like Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc., the live performance industry took a massive economical hit.
From first-hand experience being a touring musician for 2+ decades, most artists’ revenue comes from concerts, shows, and in-person appearances. There are too many ways around buying music (and content in general) for artists to depend on record sales alone as their main source of income.
For roughly two freakin’ years, live acts’ prime way to earn a living was stripped away, and now we’re seeing them try to play catch-up. This not only goes for bands/groups, but also — not limited to — DJs, poets, comedians, stage actors, dancers, magicians, and the crews involved with their production.
Granted, there were under-underground shows during the dark days of the pandemic, and yes, I attended them; don’t look at me like that, I wore a mask while I was there. Sue me.
You know what? I was an “essential” (sucker) worker in hospitals during that initial, most harmful wave, notably Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NY — dubbed “coronavirus ground zero” — and since society deemed it acceptable for me to do that thankless job as long as I wore PPE, I deemed it the same for myself if I wanted to go out and nurture my biological social needs.
The “leaders” of society didn’t religiously follow the rules they were imposing on the people anyway.
Please allow me to sidetrack for a moment, to shine a light on how my local government and powerful organizations’ interests “follow the science” and justify keeping us from enjoying the fruits they entitle themselves to.
Let’s follow the money…
When NYC mayor Eric Adams gave pro-athletes and live performers exemption from the absurd ‘rona vaccine mandate on the city’s private sector — a leftover from former mayor Bill de Blasio’s term — I found no reason to celebrate as a performer myself; he hasn’t given municipal, essential, and private workers the same exemption as well.
Why not, you ask?
His decision came shortly after sports-radio show hosts Carton & Roberts (WFAN) addressed publicly how unvaccinated NY Yankees and Mets wouldn’t be allowed to play in home games under the mandate at the time. This prompted both the mayor and the teams’ execs to openly report they were in talks with each other, working on such a pressing issue. And voilà, one week before MLB Opening Day, their exemption conveniently came to fruition with time to spare, showing a tone-deaf audacity from Adams, citing the unfairness around the home teams being at a competitive disadvantage.
Hooray, thousands of Big Apple residents — its backbone — could now watch these unvaccinated millionaire ballplayers work uninhibited while stressing over meeting next month’s rent since they aren’t permitted to work.
Lord Science must be a baseball fan, I guess.
At least unvaxxed venue staff can return to work these games and shows as well, but contrary to Adam’s declaration, “New York is back,” his actions only prove that New York isn’t back yet, but it’s still a league leader in corruption and elitism.
Now, back to the benefits of supporting live arts.
Performers and venues greatly appreciate every single patron that chooses to spend their hard-earned money and free time to attend their shows. They’ve been aching so long to finally exchange sacred live energy, so you know they’re going to bring it.
Chances are you’re going to witness passionate, heartfelt, cathartic performances.
By the way, if you personally know the performer(s) you’re going to see, please hold off, for now, on asking to be let in for free on their guest list unless it’s offered. Like I said, they, as well as the venues, are trying to recoup their losses and rejuvenate their scene, just like the world.
So the next time you’re trying to figure out something to do either by yourself or with others, consider catching a live show of some kind; the more local and independent the better. Big time acts still suffered and deserve support, but they have a better footing to recover from the pandemic.
And to performers that exclusively want to play to vaxxed crowds: A) That’s pretty impressive you got it like that, affording to be picky, and B) You’re doing yourself a disservice by trying to cherry-pick your audience. It’s enough of a struggle dealing with censorship of art, and now you want to censor the fans too (likely based on one side of a strategically fabricated narrative that’s created medical segregation)?
Nonetheless, there’s no connection with art as powerful as seeing it played out in the flesh — to feel the sounds, the soul, the spirit of creativity.
Most had unfortunately been robbed of this divine experience out of fear, potentially ill-advised lockdowns, and/or the virus itself.
For what it’s worth (which isn’t much really since it’s a subjective case), I mentioned I was going to shows during the pre-vax period of ‘rona, and I didn’t catch it. Ironically, I finally did become infected in November 2021, a mere two months after being fully vaccinated; go figure.
So look, if you feel comfortable wearing a mask, being boosted, unvaxxed, maskless at a show — whatever — it’s all good by me; the animals need to be fed regardless, and you’ll be doing your part to enrich the creative ecosystem to boot.
Thank you for reading.
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