Coronavirus: Is the Garth Brooks concert the new normal for live music?

SALT LAKE CITY – I woke up on Saturday morning with a specific type of emotion that I hadn’t felt since March: I was going to a concert.

The last show I saw before the coronavirus pandemic was the Lone Bellow folk trio at a medium-sized venue in Salt Lake City on March 6. I had to get there to beat the crowd and claim a place at the front of the stage.

Up close, I saw the musicians lean on the music, feeding on each other and their enthusiastic fans. At one point, I even yelled out a song request (they didn’t play it, but they yelled one of the lyrics at me in a slight form of recognition).

The energy of that night was palpable: I think about it every time I wear the shirt I bought at that concert. And it reaffirmed my love for live music, and justified the fact that my 2020 calendar was primarily used to keep track of concert dates.

And then COVID-19 appeared.

Six days after I saw the Lone Bellow, theaters and venues across Utah closed. Utah Governor Gary Herbert announced that the mass gatherings will be limited to 100 people or less.

And so, concerts were no longer feasible. And my calendar no longer had a purpose.

Until last Saturday, when I had plans to see country superstar Garth Brooks at Redwood Drive-in in West Valley City, for a self-service concert, an emerging trend amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Since the venues began closing in March, Brooks has continually reached out to fans with concerts on Facebook Live. But he got even more creative earlier this month, announcing that a special filmed concert would air in 300 movie theaters across North America, for just one night.

I saw Brooks five years ago at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake. He was in nosebleeds and would have gladly received a pair of binoculars. But even from my high seat, I couldn’t deny it: the man makes a very good show.

Would that show be that good if it weren’t live? What would a filmed version without an audience be like?

There was only one way to find out.

Chris Samuels, Deseret News

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I bought my first drive-in ticket, a place that has returned during the pandemic. Tickets cost $ 100 and covered vehicles for up to six people. When tickets went on sale a week before the concert, fans waited in line for two to four hours. Either people thought it was good business, or they were desperate to get out of the house and enjoy some form of entertainment.

I secured a ticket, and since it covered an entire vehicle, my husband, sister-in-law, and her boyfriend also joined. With Papa John’s pizza in tow, we pulled into the car in a white Toyota Tundra on Saturday night at 8:30 – an hour before showtime. We park the truck at a slight angle to optimize our view of the screen.

Jennifer Johnson

And then we got comfortable. We placed two lawn chairs and a large black bean bag on the bed of the truck. I jumped into the bean bag, grabbed an extra slice of cheese pizza, and started looking around.

Like those old pre-COVID concerts, people had turned up early. We were far from the first ones there.

About 10 feet apart, the vehicles filled several rows of outer space. And people had already begun to feel at home. Surrounded by citrus Skittles and Airheads, a family spread out on the sidewalk to play the game “Heads Up!” A family a little later transformed a truck bed into a makeshift living room, complete with a baby in a crib. Several fans dressed up for the occasion, in cowboy hats and Garth Brooks T-shirts.

These people, and my entire team, were ready for a show.

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A few minutes after 9:30 pm, once the sun had faded from view, a dynamic Brooks appeared on the big screen and broke his 1993 hit, “Ain’t Goin ‘Down (‘ Till the Sun)”. It was the first of 18 hits that Brooks would sing for his fans scattered across North America that night.

Lottie Johnson

I loved every song. Lying in the bean bag, he sang often. My bare feet dangled from the edge of the truck, swaying from side to side with the music.

It was a good time, but a wistful thought kept popping up in my mind: Is this the new normal when it comes to great entertainment?

I hoped not. Yes, it was fun. But the event didn’t even come close to matching the excitement of a live concert, something he had last experienced with Lone Bellow almost four months ago.

On the one hand, the show was prerecorded. I knew going in, but seeing how it played out only reiterated the importance of interaction between artists and fans. Brooks couldn’t hear people cheering, or, in this case, honking.

I couldn’t hear the fans screaming requests. He couldn’t joke around with his fans, or feed off his energy.

And when he asked people to turn on the lights on his cell phone for his ballad “The River,” there was no way he really knew if anyone was actually doing it (for the record, a lot of people turned on their lights).

But even that kind of participation in the concert didn’t feel the same. With the social distancing measures in place, and on the echo of the diffuse radios and the sound systems of the cars, it was difficult to know if the people were singing or if my group was the stranger (near the end of the show, Brooks). “Friends in Low Places” let me know that, for at least a few minutes, my group was definitely not alone.)

On the screen, I was able to see Brooks clearly, which is more than I can say about the arena show I attended in 2015. But if I had a choice, I’d pay more for a nosebleed seat in a what I paid to see Brooks. pretty close to the comfort of a car.

Brooks and his band sounded great, and it was an excellent show with the singer’s best hits. But there was a palpable disconnection: with the music, with the public and with Brooks.

Lottie Johnson, Deseret News

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The coronavirus pandemic makes sand shows virtually impossible at the moment. After Brooks closed their show with “The Dance,” a message appeared on the screen, promising fans that the band will return to the tour “soon.”

Of course, no one really knows when “soon” is. On Monday, Broadway announced that it will be closed for the rest of 2020. And after Brooks, other great artists like Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker are beginning to embrace the concerts.

But seeing the word “soon” still gave me some hope. It reminded me that even as the pandemic continues, great artists like Brooks don’t want this to be the new normal. They long to return to the stage and play for their fans.

The eventual return to the arenas will probably look different than it was before the pandemic, but there is one thing regarding concerts that the pandemic has only reinforced: live music cannot be replaced.

But until fans can get together indoors, celebrating and enjoying the music they love, musicians like Brooks are exploring ways to bring people together in the safest way possible.

Perhaps the show would have been better on a streaming service. People could have enjoyed it from their own homes, televisions, and speaker systems. But on Saturday night they tried to recreate the concert experience, something that begins to feel strange as the pandemic continues.

And Brooks certainly gets an A for trying.

“Show that this is what you love. This is her passion, and she loves to cheer other people up, “Katelyn Bosworth, an enthusiastic Garth Brooks fan, told the Deseret News from her truck bed minutes before the concert.” It’s nice to feel that even though you can’t performing live, he still cares about his fans. ”