TOTAL REVERB RECALL
Hub musicians remember their last live gigs before the world hit the mute button
Live music in Boston shut down one year ago this week. The moment of truth happened around St. Patrick’s Day: On March 12, 2020, the Dropkick Murphys called off their annual celebration (at least until a no-audience show at Fenway Park). The following night, the great English alternative band Wire showed up at the Sinclair on Harvard Square, and soundchecked for a show that never happened.
For folks who make a living playing music, it was an especially tough week; and nearly everyone has a vivid memory. We asked some musical friends to look back at where they were at this time last year — and to look forward just a little to the next live gig.
For Steve Prygoda, who fronts the band Cold Expectations, the last preCOVID gig was both upbeat and ominous. “We played a house party with Linnea’s Garden on March 7th, a fantastic night of food, drinking and meeting new people. The night really guided us to our new, poppier sound. But at the end of the night I was helping load out the drums and as the snare was being handed to me it slid right through my hands into Linnea’s full-length mirror, shattering it to pieces. ‘I’m sure nothing bad will come out of this,’ I said. A week later we were in full lockdown.”
Mandolin expert Jimmy Ryan usually gets Irishthemed gigs at this time of year. “I had a corporate gig playing Irish tunes in Boston financial district for a Paddy’s Day in the lobby of a high rise. People were leaving work early and had their computers with them. Three-quarters of them were saying ‘What is this, the Titanic?’ as they exited the elevators and walked past us.”
Jazz and pop vocalist Dayna Kurtz, who was locally based before moving to New Orleans, was touring Europe at the time of shutdown. “Robert and I (her guitarist Robert Mache) had done one great show in Utrecht and were on our way to Rotterdam for the second when we got the call that public events larger than 50 people were canceled and we turned around. We did one small scheduled house concert over the German border after that, they banned them a couple days later, and it was this beautiful, melancholy occasion. Everyone there knew it would be a long time before we’d have a show again. We were all in tears afterwards, even the Germans.”
Another welltraveled New Orleans musician, drummer Carlo Nuccio, says his lifestyle didn’t change too much. “I play in the Alex McMurray Band and we reckoned we were the best possible band for social distancing. Even on our best nights we never draw more than 12 people.” (They are in fact quite well-liked down there). Mike Girard, frontman of local favorites the Fools, remembers a touching moment at his last show in Plymouth, N.H. “Prior to the show, I was introduced to someone’s 94-year-old granddad, a WWII army vet who had been at the Battle of the Bulge. Since my dad had also been there, we hit it off pretty good. During the show I told the audience about him and all 700-plus people stood up cheering and gave him a standing ovation. It was pretty special. After the show he told me, ‘That’s the first standing ovation I ever got.’ I remember thinking later that the days of bringing someone that ancient into a crowded unmasked room had ended.”
The upside is that musicians can finally start thinking about what they’ll do when they can step onstage again. “It’s a moment I fantasize about,” says Linnea Herzog, leader of Linnea’s Garden. “We plan to open with a song whose chorus is, ‘I wanna see your mouth.’ ” Anthony Kaczynski, the guitarist/singer who tours internationally with Magnetic Fields and plays locally with Fireking and Trusty Sidekick, also has big plans. “The first thing I am going to do on stage when everything is normal is hit the loudest E chord I can and make it feed back like Uncle Lou on ‘Metal Machine Music’,” he says, referencing Lou Reed’s notorious all-feedback album. “And then I’m going to scream as loud as possible.”