My mother’s current biggest regret is not attending Post Malone’s Runaway Tour in Grand Rapids on February 12th, one of the very last concerts held in Van Andel Arena before the whole U.S. shut down in response to the COVID19 outbreak (the 8th to last show, to be exact). Her love for his music started with discovering the song “Go Flex” off his Stoney album about two years ago and has only increased since downloading the YouTube app on her phone to shuffle through the many generated Post Malone playlists and seeing him headline on TV at Times Square
on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 2019. She hasn’t attended a concert since last July when my family road-tripped it to Indianapolis to see Twenty One Pilots for the second time that summer. She mentions missing Post Malone's show about once a week, saddened by the feeling she may have missed her chance. But "Posty," as my mom has lovingly coined him, has made efforts to perform live music however he can with the goal of beating this pandemic in mind.
Back in April, Post Malone held an online Nirvana inspired concert to raise money for hospital patients and staff along with vaccine research. The concert was a great opportunity not only for raising COVID relief support, but for Post Malone to connect musicians by paying tribute to Nirvana and provide fans of both artists the opportunity to experience live music in some capacity.
Post Malone is just one of many musicians who has made an effort to provide financial support during the economically unstable times of COVID. Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie has posted 22 “Live From Home” videos on YouTube, of which six were fundraisers. Many artists have donated directly to Crew Nation (BTS) or have even created merchandise (Twenty One Pilots) in which all proceeds are donated to the cause. Artists are donating to the relief fund in hopes of providing support for music industry crews that have been affected by the virus. The venue event staffs, security guards and concession stand workers are a few examples of workers that are benefitting from the proceeds, all practically out of a job as long as live music is on pause.
Post Malone on October 18th of last year during the first leg of his Runaway tour that was canceled mid-tour in February.
BTS
BTS — who under normal circumstances would have been playing in sold-out stadiums across the globe for their Map of the Soul tour that was originally scheduled to kick off in Seoul, South Korea back in April — held a live online concert Bang Bang Con: The Live on June 14th that brought in 756,000 views. This draw broke the Guinness world record for highest viewership garnered for an online concert livestream that was quickly rivaled by their own band only 4 months later during their 2-day Map of the Soul O:ne concert with 993,000 viewers in October.
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I was supposed to see BTS in person a few days prior to the Bang Bang Con online concert for the very first time. I had spent hours researching tips and secrets on how to beat the complete bloodbath that is battling for tickets to see the biggest group in the world in early February. The intensity of the high I felt when I finally secured the tickets after anxiously losing my
BTS from their Bang Bang Con concert on June 14th.
mind in a virtual waiting room for an hour was comparable to that of the low I experienced when the entire tour was postponed a few months later. When I bought the tickets in February, I had only been listening to the group for about 5 months at that point, but I had found so much joy in listening to their music, in staying up until 4am for their latest album drop, in sitting in my anticipation of getting to watch some of the greatest performers of our generation take the stage right in front of my eyes.
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It seemed the online concert they planned for June had perfect timing: I hardly had enough time to be sad about not getting to see them in person like I planned as I watched them perform some of the songs off the new album for the very first time live, all the way on the other side of the world from my bedroom at home. The members read comments that were sent in in real time by fans and encouraged the use of a feature allowing fans to synchronize their ARMY Bombs to their setlist—the bright light stick that changes colors to the beat of each song simultaneously along with all other ARMY Bombs across the world—just like they do at their in-person concerts.
Lit purple ARMY bombs represent fans in the empty stands for the two-day Map of the Soul O:ne concert. Fans from all around the world had the option to sync their ARMY bombs with each song as they were being performed.
I found myself feeling so bittersweet in those moments where a group I love had gone out of their way to connect with and bring music to fans that cannot meet with them the way we want to. I was touched by how much they so obviously missed performing, evident in the anguish and frustration they expressed as musicians unable to do what they’re born to do, the way they sincerely told us they missed us, the intensity and effort they poured into each vocally demanding verse, diligent rap and complex choreography (some old, practically made new with their energy).
Some fans won the exclusive opportunity to record themselves watching as the concert was taking place. Their videos were displayed on a screen above the seats in the venue for BTS to see during the live stream. Audio from the lucky fans was filtered in so BTS could hear as they were performing and speaking to the "crowd," creating a Zoom-like concert where BTS and ARMYs were able to interact in real time.
But while I’m glad they were excited to be performing — if not in front of fans in person at least for faces on a screen — and while I was happy to watch them in any capacity I could, I didn’t miss the moments they mentioned how difficult it was to perform without fans physically in the room, how much they missed it, how upset they were that a tour for which they had prepared and practiced and planned for an entire year never happened.
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I didn’t miss the way I found myself thinking about having the chance to see the new jaw-dropping sets myself and hear their voices not through headphones but with my own ears.
It is not lost on me what has been lost.
But most of all, I am grateful. Grateful that BTS were so willing and committed to reach us however they could. Grateful that I could afford a ticket to watch the complete spectacle of a show that they were able to put on with a real in-person concert budget. Grateful that, as vocalist Jungkook pointed out, because of modern technology we even have the capability to do something like this.
It makes me confident that no matter what happens, music will always find its way to reach us, even when the world is changing, and our day-to-day lives continue to move away from resembling normalcy.
Music will find us. And we will find music.