Touring: What Will It Look Like?
If you’re anything like me, you love going to see your favorite band/artist live, it is something that you live for. Extremely relaxing, entertaining, and allowing a large sense of community among others that enjoy the same sounds that you do. Living in this strange time of COVID, with certain things starting to reopen, while others remain completely closed, or a seeing numbers spiking again it’s hard to know when we will be able to take part in seeing live shows again. Which for many like myself is something incredibly hard to grasp. I am still holding onto every last bit of hope that I will be able to go to a concert before the end of the year, although I know that’s extremely unlikely. Especially with the cancellation of two of the three shows I was holding out hope for just today.
I have been thinking a lot about what this all means for the future of touring. For fans, bands, band managers, and the historic venues themselves. Without this revenue, things will change, places will be forced to close. And sadly, this will change the way we see live music in the future. That is one thing, maybe the only thing, I am sure of. With a lot of new music having just been released, and bands not being able to tour, and do what they love, or having to cancel the tour they were already on. Or even having to try to figure out how to write and record while separated. It’s a new world for everyone involved in music in any way. I have been following different bands and their processes throughout all of this. Something that has been particularly interesting has been the increase in number of bands live-streaming shows. And being able to follow the writing and recording processes as bands have had to adapt to, being quarantined. One that has been particularly interesting to follow is Bring Me The Horizon, who has been documenting their processes since before they were quarantined. If you haven’t already seen this, I highly recommend checking it out on their Instagram.
As far as touring goes, until recently I hadn’t really found anything that would give me my fix. Honestly, it has been like a part of my soul is missing. But, this week a friend of mine, Jerry Clubb of Ricochet Management and manager of Suicide Silence, released a phenomenal, game changing tour layout to the world. This is a virtual tour, unlike any other tour. Suicide Silence will be touring virtually, all around the world throughout the month of July. The first dates and locations are already up with tickets ready to purchase! Other locations are open to suggestions as to where they should take place, as each of these dates are geo-gated, meaning that you have to be within a certain proximity to see that particular show. The shows will be professionally filmed, offer a full chat integration to build an even stronger sense of community, and we are able to request our favorite songs! Talk about how amazing that is right? Seeing a band you love, songs you love being with a community of people who love the same, that’s a win. Not only will there be a chat and the no doubt amazing show, but there will also be market specific mixed media, as well as a Q&A post performance. On top of all of that tickets are $10, yup you heard me, TEN DOLLARS. That is a steal if I must say so myself. I don’t think I have been so excited for a while now. Live music is my passion, and Jerry is here to bring fans the music and community we’ve all been missing. Suicide Silence was one of those bands ready to set on tour just as this pandemic hit, and they are eager to get playing. As noted earlier, the first set of dates are already set, but there are 39 dates to play in total, and they are working on other locations. If you have suggestions on where go let them know!
This is something that so many other bands could do and this is probably the closest that we can get to a live show for the foreseeable future. Let’s take advantage of this great opportunity, and watch some killer live music. Stay strong in this time of uncertainty of live music. We will rock together again soon!
Get tickets to the Suicide Silence Virtual Tour here!!
