Grammy Awards reschedule a sign of things to come
It was announced this week the 63rd annual Grammy Awards would be shifting its ceremony scheduled for later this month to the middle of March. While the move isn’t completely unexpected, given the ramped up spread of
Covid-19 in Los Angeles where the event is set to take place, it may very well be a sign of things to come for the music industry.
“After thoughtful conversations with health experts, our host and artists scheduled to appear, we are rescheduling the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards to be broadcast Sunday, March
14, 2021,” said Recording Academy executives in part about the event originally slated for Jan. 31 in a statement. “Nothing is more important than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show.”
The Grammys join other high-profile awards shows like the Oscars and the Golden Globes in having adjusted their schedules for what will hopefully be a better date given the continued rollout of vaccines. Unfortunately, the delays may end up extending even further or turn virtual, making these delays more instances of buying time than anything else.
Forget about tuxedo filled nights of industry feting though, what this really does is bring into sharper focus just how far away we are from getting things back to any semblance of how people are used to enjoying music related events. The Grammys had planned performances and acceptance speeches from artists an unspecified number of fans in attendance. Deeming what looks on the surface to be easy, hard — just remove the audience — makes something like a multi-day festival absolutely impossible.
Last year, Coachella announced its multi-weekend fest would be moved from April to October before finally giving up on
2020 and setting it for April
9-11 and April 16-18 of this year. Those dates were still locked in, almost laughably, as buzz continued it would once again shoot for fall.
Long the indicator for how the festival season will play out each year in terms of talent, Coachella now finds itself in the unenviable position of leading others like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza into uncertainty and if the event can even take place. Holding off to the very last moment to move to the fall has organizers nervous that if they do have to eventually cancel October again, it could prove disastrous.
Remember, there are people who plan entire vacations around this sort of thing, never mind booking flights and hotels with businesses that won’t be so willing to dole out a refund should the country partially open up by then, just not enough for thousands upon thousands to mash up together in a field to check out Calvin Harris or Travis Scott. Bump it back over and over and it’s going to negatively affect the bottom line for a long time to come.
That said, experts are saying we can expect to see many restrictions begin to ease by sometime mid to late summer for larger gatherings. What it will look like when that does happen is anyone’s guess, but it won’t be packed venues for concerts — big or small. And those expectations are factoring in if more than half of the population gets vaccinated. Given how politicized the pandemic has become, there’s no telling if that is even feasible within seven or eight months.
Will the Grammys take place in March? It’s highly doubtful, at least the way organizers hope for it to go down. What we’ll probably see is a highly modified event, with lots of prerecorded performances and virtual acceptance speeches. It’s still the biggest night for popular music, but not at the cost of delaying smaller nights for everyone else.
VINYL OF THE WEEK
Keep an eye on this spot as each week we’ll be looking at new or soon-to-be-released vinyl from a variety of artists. It might be a repressing of a landmark recording, special edition or new collection from a legendary act. This week, it’s the re-release of the first live album from some local hard rockers gone big.
HALESTORM — ‘LIVE IN PHILLY 2010’
Halestorm, from Red Lion, had been honing their hard rock skills locally for several years before unleashing their acclaimed self-titled debut in the spring of 2009. While in the midst of touring for the record, playing festivals with the likes of AC/DC, Alice in Chains and sharing bills with Shinedown and Staind, the group did a homecoming show at the Theatre of Living Arts on South Street in April 2010 and recorded it for posterity.
‘Live in Philly 2010’ was released that November, and now it’s celebrating a 10 year anniversary with a limited edition two-LP set while making its debut on vinyl.
Led by singer/guitarist Elizabeth “Lzzy” Hale and her brother Arejay Hale on drums, Halestorm have made some impressive inroads through the music landscape in the decade since ‘Live in Philly 2010’ first came out. Not only have they have toured extensively with over 2,500 live performances to date, but the band nabbed a 2013 Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance for the hit single “Love Bites (So Do I)” and scored a 2019 Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance for the song “Uncomfortable.”
“10 years ago was the beginning of a new lifetime,” Lzzy Hale said in a statement looking back at the show on Philly that April. “We had just released our first album on Atlantic Records. It was a time of discovering who we were, not just to ourselves...but who we were to the world. When I listen to this live album, I still remember the feeling of beautiful panic before hitting the stage at the TLA, a place where I had experienced the live shows of many of my idols as a young Pennsylvania girl.”
Mastered for vinyl by Ted Jensen with lacquers cut at Sterling Sound, ‘Live in Philly 2010’ was pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands is available on clear and black mixed color vinyl and comes in a gatefold tip-on jacket. The set is limited to 5,000 copies worldwide and can be purchased online and in stores from all respectable retailers who carry vinyl.