Musician urges fans to help the show go on
It’s no longer compulsory at venues, but if you’re heading to a gig, should you be masking up?
Country and soul musician Tami Neilson, who’s on the New Zealand leg of a world tour for her new album Kingmaker, is among those urging show-goers to to do just that to protect performers and other audience members.
“Asking my audience to just try to help us to stay on the road. It’s something that I really felt compelled to do to protect my band, to protect myself and my crew,” Neilson said.
And it appears her audience have listened — at her sold out Aotea Centre gig last Saturday, a sea of face coverings warmed the Canadian-born artist’s heart.
“Walking on to the stage and seeing 2000 people wearing masks because they care enough about us to protect us and to protect each other was really special,” she said.
“It filled my heart and it put me at ease completely, and then I could perform the show feeling pretty safe that I could continue to tour for the rest of this month.”
Neilson said she’s seen the toll Covid-19 has taken on the live music scene, with touring parties struck down by the illness.
“I’ve just had that happen to way too many artist friends and colleagues who get about three or four shows into a tour that they’ve been looking forward to and working on for a year, after so many cancellations and postponements for the past couple of years.
“So much heartbreak and money lost and income. If all it takes is asking if someone can please wear a mask, you know, that’s not a big ask when it comes to the livelihood of the performers that you love.”
Promoter Reuben Bonner runs Aucklandbased Banished Music, which puts on shows for local and international artists.
After the lean times caused by lockdowns and alert levels restrictions, Bonner said the live industry is not out of the woods yet.
“After you’ve gotten through this really tough couple of years where you weren’t sure if the environment would let the show go ahead because of restrictions, now we’re kind of full guns blazing and we’re able to do shows.
“But that doesn’t mean that if an artist gets sick it’s gonna go ahead, so that’s another way things get stopped really quickly. So it’s still like Russian roulette really.”
While Banished Music staff wear masks at shows and encourage the audience to do the same, Bonner said he understood that some people see gigs as an escape from all things Covid-19, so might be reluctant.
But from a promoter’s point of view, he said, last minute cancellations due to artists’ going down with Covid-19 could be extremely disruptive.
“It’s a nightmare. It really just smashes things around completely — on an organisational level, on a morale level, on an emotional level and severely on a financial level.”