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Artists stream live concerts – from their living rooms to yours
When the world is running down and everything looks scary, we’ve always got Neil Diamond.
Last week the troubadour uploaded a clip of him singing “Sweet Caroline”, with a few timely changes for the coronavirus epidemic (“Reaching out, don’t touch me, I won’t touch you.”) It became one of the mostshared clips of social media, and one example of how music icons are doing their bit to keep us all sane.
They’ll be plenty more in the weeks to come, as musicians who can’t perform live
bring their shows to live streams. Among local artists, the list keeps growing: Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz is now doing a weekly “virtual happy hour” Saturdays at 4:30 p.m.; go to the band’s Facebook page and you can even request a song for the occasion (Janovitz is donating some of the online tips to the Burren on Davis Square, where he’d otherwise be playing). One of Janovitz’s sometime collaborators, Mike Gent of the Figgs has also done two all-request Facebook shows (archived on his Facebook page), which served to prove that Gent’s fans know nearly as many deep tracks as he does.
One city that can currently match Boston for musicians losing their regular gigs is New Orleans. That city’s favorite performers are also taking to the web: Trumpeter Kermit Ruffins managed to get his entire band to his Mother-in-Law Lounge in his Treme neighborhood for a two-hour set last Saturday; they’ll be repeating the feat Saturday at 3 p.m.
Another local favorite, pianist John Cleary (a transplanted Londoner who put in a few years in Bonnie Raitt’s band) is doing twiceweekly “Quarantini Happy Hours,” with informal songs and chat, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. Close your eyes and you’re in one of the Crescent City piano bars he usually frequents.
Also in Boston, the songwriter and performance artist Linnea Herczog has been pulling in a bunch of creative friends for a series of impromptu Facebook performances. She was planning to launch her new band, Linnea’s Garden, onstage this weekend. That will now be happening on Facebook at 8 p.m. (the band, she notes, will all be 10 feet away from each other). If her last band PowerSlut is any indication, expect plenty of killer hooks and subversively sexy lyrics.
No international disaster ever seems to keep A-list celebrities from joining forces for splashy benefit shows. And it won’t get much splashier than IHeart Media’s “Living Room Concert for America,” which airs on Fox TV Sunday night, to replace the media giant’s planned awards show.
Elton John will host, and a roomful of big names — in separate rooms, of course — will all be on hand: Alicia Keys, the Backstreet Boys, Billie Eilish, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mariah Carey. If nothing else, we’ll get to satisfy our curiosity about what these folks’ houses look like.
Meanwhile in England, a gent named Ronan McManus has been doing some good work with a health-centered charity organization, Artists4NHS. McManus’ brother Declan, better known as Elvis Costello, will be doing a benefit webcast Friday — though UK restrictions kept him from going live as planned, he’s recording it this week and it will be streamed (at 12:30 a.m. our time) tonight as “Elvis Costello in Isolation,” on the organization’s FB page.
He’ll be responding to requests and even fans’ interview questions that were submitted during the week.
Another of the world’s great songwriters (and one who Costello has covered), UK native Richard Thompson, will be joining the Facebook fray this Sunday. Beginning at 4 p.m., he’ll be dipping into his endless songbook for a “concert for parents and grandparents who are staying at home” — that last part at least covers most of us.
While these live streams favor songwriters with acoustic guitars and pianos, there’s an antidote for that too: The new local venue
Big Night Live is hosting a series of virtual DJ parties (at www.twitch.tv/bignighttv), with jocks representing some of the city’s most (usually) hopping venues. Tonight at 9, it’s Tony Clarke from Mémoire at Boston Harbor’s Encore. The pumping lights and sound will create an almost-live event, and you can dance like mad without worrying about who’s watching.