Mandatory Reading: Live-Stream Pros and Cons; Chainsmokers and Smashmouth Live

A screen grab from a video of The Chainsmokers’ audience at a party in the Hamptons

We’ve been writing about the ways we hear live music in 2020; we’re not alone. Here are some good takes on live-streams and efforts to play before live audiences outside the drive-in setting.

Since March and the start of the stay home and social distancing efforts, we have been focused on the way live music manifests itself. Since live music has not only been an important part of my personal life but an essential part of New Orleans’ social life, how we experience it and in what forms has been the through-line in My Spilt Milk’s coverage of the last five months. We can only write so many stories though. Here are others written in the last week that also address these concerns. 

Last week, I wrote talked with a number of musicians about the potential for live-streamed concerts. At the same time, The New York Times examined the limitations. Critic Jon Pareles wrote about how live-streams overrate intimacy and underrate joy—two points I don’t disagree with. Writer David Peisner also considered live-streamed concerts from the artist’s perspective with some insights into the financial realties of those gigs.

But while most live performances take place digitally or at drive-in concerts, some bands have chosen to risk it and play conventional concerts. The July Mini Fest in Wisconsin started out as the Herd Immunity Festival, and the three-day event actually took place July 16-18. Organizers encouraged attendees to social distance and wear masks, but neither was required. The festival only sold 2,500 tickets in a space that held 10,000 as a concession to the Coronavirus and social distancing. Based on this account, it’s hard to imagine how being at the event felt more exciting than a live-stream.

Last week we also learned that Smashmouth, Buckcherry, Trapt will also disregard social distancing and more will play shows in Sturgis, South Dakota the Buffalo Chip Motorcycle Rally. 

Finally, The Chainsmokers played a fundraiser in The Hamptons that became notorious for the size of the gathering and the lack of social distancing. There’s coverage of it here, here and here, but I like this story from NPR because it includes a few seconds of video shot from the stage, which means the band or its crew helped to narc the event.

The story also questions the validity of photos as evidence. We’ve already written about a show where different camera angles tell different stories about the proximity of attendees to each other, and some attendees and organizers argue that the images misrepresent the event. And unless everybody had to stand by himself or herself, people who came to the party together would be standing together.