Strange, I never got around to posting this one back in June, have been a bit remiss with updates in recent months, but he in reality there hasn’t been all that much going on, in and out of lockdown…….. so here’s what I was thinking then and I’ll follow up with a new update…..
Well here we are in June 2020, and it’s a very strange, different and often quite confusing World to the one I stepped away from temporarily on the 10th of Jan……
The weirdest thing is probably that as time has gone on and different countries have eased restrictions to varying degrees the confusion has actually grown, the types of activities you can take part in mean that when travel does start to open up more next week it’s going to be confusing as hell for people travelling, expecting that they can do the same things as they can in their home country, there certainly won’t be any foreign travel for me this year, but just take it at a very basic level, if I travel to any other country, will I be expected to self quarantine for a period of time either when I get there or when I return home, well I don’t really know, most countries have been desperate to create these Travel Bridges, to allow economies to get going again, especially in countries dependent on Tourism as a main industry. The quarantine question has changed massively, initially the plan was people would have to self isolate for 2 weeks when arriving in a different country, have their stay there and then come back and do the same on the return end, so reality is a one week holiday would take 5 weeks. This currently isn’t the case anymore, But should things reverse like they have in parts of China, Germany and now perhaps South Korea it very quickly becomes unworkable. Then of course there is the problem of what will you be able to do when you arrive in another country, what is open, are masks compulsory, what is public transport like now can I get from A to B without too many problems. It really is a bit of a lottery and to me would be a pointless exercise right now.
As you may get from this Site Live Music is a massive part of my life, listening, being a part of, photographing, I miss it massively, was reminded by some people on a Festival Forum yesterday just how long it’s been since I actually attended a Gig, 185 Days, damn there have been times when I haven’t gone more than a day or two without going to something, or have gone to more than one in a day. Right now what the future holds is anyone’s guess, all we know is that for the foreseeable future there certainly won’t be any live shows in any kind of way that we will recognise, Venues/Promoters can’t make it financially viable with 20-30% capacity at a show, travel restrictions for artists & bands will more than likely make planning any Tour a nightmare, and there’s no saying that people will have any appetite to return to small sweaty venues until some form of vaccine or treatment is available. In an industry that generally works a year in advance from a planning perspective the damage, and continuing damage could be catastrophic. Hopefully Governments will finally step up and start to provide packages that will help save live venues and help to safeguard the industry as a whole. For me I’ll continue to support Artists/Promoters/Venues as much as possible, and even though I have purchased Tickets for gigs late in 2020 and moving into early 2021 I honestly doubt we will be getting back into venues this side of Christmas, that’s for sure. What does this mean, well assuming they can kick off 2021, and the situation has improved for us all, well then we can look forward to an absolutely bumper year for gigs next year, everyone will be on the Road then, trying to earn some money, and hopefully just to get out and do what they and we all love. With a bunch of postponements already announced I have a calendar next year that’s been filled rapidly. It’s bizarre and crazy, but yeah, gigs in the list for next November.
As the days go on the ups and downs perhaps become more severe, having been at home now for 6 months, pandemic, lockdown, recovery thrown in it gets a bit more difficult and depressing, It’s great to have home life and all that goes with it, but really missing gigs and friends. Nothing more to do but hope for a vaccine, remedy or working treatment. Hoping people will just do as they are asked I think is a lost cause. The people that have been following the rules to date will continue to do so, but sadly there’s always going to be a core of people that either don’t believe the problem is real or continue to believe that it just won’t affect them so the cases will go back up at some point.
Lets hope for a break in this and a change for the better.