’s 80th-birthday concerts and the opening of a new Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, Shapiro switched gears to try to get his employees paid with the Paycheck Protection Program , rescheduling dates, and trying to pivot to livestreaming. His Rock and Roll Playhouse music school broadcasts concerts for kids every day at 3 p.m., and he recently streamed aShapiro thinks there’s only one safe way venues can open up again: rapid testing. “That’s the key,” he says. “You take a test to come in.
Shapiro thinks a rapid-testing scenario may even be possible at Lock’n, his huge jam-band extravaganza in Virginia that has drawn members of the Dead, the Allman Brothers, the String Cheese Incident, and others. Shapiro has pushed the festival, originally scheduled for June, back to October. “I’m not giving that up yet,” he says. “I think it would only happen if you took a test to get in,” he says.
Shapiro says the pandemic has changed his life in ways he would have never imagined. He’s spending a lot of time playing hockey on his roof with his kids. He hasn’t gone this long without seeing a show since he was 16. “That part has been kind of nice,” he says. “But there’s also the stress of figuring everything out. We’re moving shows a lot.” He’s trying to find a way to make digital concerts more communal. “We’re trying to work with technology and enable stuff like home dancing.
The future of post Covid-19 performance? Don Kirschner come baaaaaack please!!!!