COVID-19: Are Drive-In Concerts Here to Stay?

Reverb and Reverse

Ever since the COVID-19 disrupted our musical lives, festivals and concerts have been temporarily postponed until further notice. As the live music industry pretty much covers the majority of artist income nowadays, artists and songwriters alike are coming up with new ways to perform live to their fans. Or a revival, if you will.

The way that it works is pretty much the same to a drive-in cinema. Simply tune in to the radio frequency … and watch the show from comfort of your own car. It not only gives us something to do during this period of utter boredom, but also provides music artists to earn a living, maintaining the sustainability of the live music industry in general.

Just last week for instance, Danish musician Mads Langer performed to a crows of 600 cars at Copenhagen Airport. I mean, why not? It seems as good a time as any to use the airports.

“With my first ever drive-in concert, I’m trying to adapt to the new reality as a performing artist and hopefully spread a little sunshine in your cars,” Langer said before the performance on April 24.

“Bear with me if I stumble. I don’t know how to prepare for this!”

With Denmark being the first European city to enter complete lockdown following COVID-19, it is reassuring to see lockdown regulations finally loosening up so locals can start enjoying themselves.

Just a couple of weeks ago too, popular country artist Keith Urban performed a secret drive-in show in Tennessee for American front-line health care workers. This is what he had to say at the prospect of doing such a show.

I felt like I was in that cartoon Cars, you know, the Pixar one? Playing to all these headlights and everything. A lot of people sat on the roof or on the bonnet or had pick-up, you know utes, pick-up trucks and turned them around and sat in the back.
Keith Urban

In the midst of the panic, it seems that people can forget it all and get back into what they loved doing. Getting creative and listening to live music.

But whilst local artists are representing their local towns and city folk every now and then, it doesn’t seem like more are set for artist summer tours unfortunately. The act of constantly lugging around crews and gear may feel like we’ve resorted to going backwards and making the situation worse, not better. So it may be the special one-time performance every now and then for now.

Whether or not this will catch on past this pandemic, and trump the “normal” rendition of listening to live music, may be a different story altogether.

With drivers only being able to have their left windows down and with their cars appropriately spaced it, it has allowed us to enjoy live music again safely. And once we are allowed to stand within everyone else’s two metres, this may be the closest thing to us ever getting back to the norm.

With shows planned and made already in Europe and America, with more than 70 shows planned in Denmark alone, it seems it is becoming the new phenomenon that people are interested in flocking to.