Month: May 2020

Event Safety Alliance Releases Reopening Safety Guide for Venues

Jason Tate

Billboard:

So Adelman and Worek, the operations director, spent the past month crowd-sourcing more than 400 tour promoters, managers, Ticketmaster employees, caterers and Irish-fair organizers and released a 29-page guide on Monday. Given contradictory, confusing and evolving state stay-at-home restrictions — bars in Kansas are allowed to open as of May 18 at half capacity, while live concerts resume in Branson, Missouri, this coming Friday — organizers of the non-profit concert-business group decided to add expertise and clarity.

The Day the Live Concert Returns

Foo Fighters
Jason Tate

Dave Grohl, writing in The Atlantic:

In today’s world of fear and unease and social distancing, it’s hard to imagine sharing experiences like these ever again. I don’t know when it will be safe to return to singing arm in arm at the top of our lungs, hearts racing, bodies moving, souls bursting with life. But I do know that we will do it again, because we have to. It’s not a choice. We’re human. We need moments that reassure us that we are not alone. That we are understood. That we are imperfect. And, most important, that we need each other. I have shared my music, my words, my life with the people who come to our shows. And they have shared their voices with me. Without that audience—that screaming, sweating audience—my songs would only be sound. But together, we are instruments in a sonic cathedral, one that we build together night after night. And one that we will surely build again.

Review: The National – High Violet

The National - High Violet
Craig Manning

When The National reemerged in 2010, they were primed to explode. It didn’t matter that they were coming up on their fifth album and had already passed the milestone that marked their first decade together as a band. They were, as people have often described their albums, a slow burn, or a grower, and by the time the new decade began, their fuse was ready to blow. 2007’s Boxer had changed the game for the Cincinnati fourpiece in more ways than one, turning them into prestige indie darlings, landing songs on the soundtracks of virtually every moody drama on television, and even earning them a small but memorable role in the campaign of a presidential hopeful named Barack Obama. By the time The National appeared on Jimmy Fallon in March of 2010 to officially kick off the rollout for High Violet, with a majestic performance of “Terrible Love,” it was clear they were ready to be rock stars.

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Kenny Chesney Has the Number One Album

Jason Tate

Kenny Chesney has the number one album in the country this week:

Country superstar Kenny Chesney captures his ninth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as his latest studio effort, Here and Now, bows atop the tally. Notably, he ties Garth Brooks for the most No. 1s among country acts in the chart’s history.

The set earned 233,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending May 7, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.