Live music: Your state-by-state guide to COVID-safe gigs

Different COVID restrictions around the country mean live music is currently poles apart depending on your state. See where your state is at.

Something For Kate will appear on The Sound.

Australian musicians and concert promoters are planning national tours now state borders are opening up.

However international tours are likely to be off the table until at least mid 2021.

This week Byron Bay event Bluesfest, due to start April 1, officially cancelled all their international artists and locked in a homegrown line-up. American rocker Patti Smith was due to play Bluesfest sideshows across the country starting in March.

Queensland country event CMC Rocks this week pushed their March 2021 show to the following year as no international acts and audience social-distancing would not provide the optimum experience for punters.

“We won’t put on a second-rate event,” promoter Michael Chugg said.

Promoter Paul Dainty has locked in Guns N’Roses for a national tour in November 2021, the first stadium tour of Australia to be announced after the pandemic put the music industry on hold. He is not reducing capacities, but says stadium shows are 85 per cent seated events.

“We’re operating on being very confident we’ll be in a different world by next year,” Dainty said.

While promoters are still hesitant to fly international acts here while hotel quarantine is still in place, the drop in COVID-19 cases nationally is seeing a rise in concerts being plotted and announced.

Xavier Rudd performing at Brisbane’s Sandstone Hotel. Picture: Curdin Photo

However the different restrictions around the country mean live music is currently poles apart depending on your state.

Last weekend Bernard Fanning, Xavier Rudd, Thelma Plum and Ballpark Music played to 6500 fans at Brisbane’s Sandstone Hotel at an outdoor event with social distancing enforced with separate areas marked out to spread out punters (as approved by Queensland health officials).

Meanwhile in Melbourne bands still need to play to seated audiences in venues that only have a quarter of their regular capacity; Sydney is now back to a 50 per cent capacity at indoor venues although this weekend and the following rock shows featuring Bernard Fanning, Matt Corby and Ocean Alley at Qudos Bank Arena will feature 6000 fans, testing the waters for larger gigs to return.

Promoter Duane McDonald’s all-Australian Red Hot Summer Tour, with Jimmy Barnes, Hoodoo Gurus, Diesel, Jon Stevens, Chris Cheney and Vika and Linda, will start in Tasmania in March, with dates in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland on sale.

McDonald moved the tour’s Victoria, Canberra and New South Wales dates to October and November next year, to be announced Sunday, due to those states taking longer to return to large outdoor events.

The Crowd adhered to COVID safety protocols and were seated during DMA's performance at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The promoter has been thrilled with the response from the states where the concerts have gone on sale.

“Sales for Red Hot Summer Tour dates in 2021 are up 32-per-cent, which is huge,” McDonald said.

“People want to see live music again. The appetite is strong. New Zealand are a few months ahead of us as far as live entertainment coming back, promoters over there told me everything they put on sells out, that’s how eager people are to see live shows. Hopefully that’ll be the case in Australia.”

Summer festivals including The Falls have been postponed, while Laneway is reportedly moving to around April with a homegrown line-up.

McDonald said planning a national tour, while navigating each state’s individual COVID safety plans, has been problematic.

“It’s different in each state right now,’ he said.

“Some states are more reactive than others. South Australia cancelled events because of what’s happened over there. Everything changes immediately if there’s an outbreak. You could have a show on Saturday that’s cancelled because there’s an outbreak on the Tuesday before. You have to expect that until there’s a vaccine. But when the borders open it’ll be a lot easier.”

The promoter said he had to pull one major act off a recent show in Brisbane as the performers’ band weren’t deemed essential workers and couldn’t enter Queensland.

DMA performing on stage at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Paul Dempsey, frontman of Melbourne trio Something For Kate, said the band are waiting to announce a national tour behind their new album The Modern Medieval, which was released last week.

“Everyone’s just learning at the same time, figuring it out at the same time. It’s going to be another interesting 12 months in terms of live music,” Dempsey said.

“In Queensland you can go and play a venue like QPAC and fill every seat. In Victoria you’re only allowed 25-per-cent capacity. That’s maybe 300 people if we played the Recital Centre. Unfortunately those figures aren’t really feasible for a band like us. So we’ll keep waiting and hopefully we can play some outdoor events over summer.

“We have tour dates pencilled in but we won’t announce anything until we’re absolutely confident we don’t have to turn around and disappoint people. There’s been enough things announced, and cancelled this year. We’d rather wait until it’s looking good.”

For musicians, COVID-normal means navigating between audiences standing in some states, and being required to be seated and spaced out in others.

Chart topper Tones And I played her first live show in over six months in Newcastle this week with limited capacity and enforced seating. However she admitted a New Year’s Eve show in Darwin, where people can party like it’s 2019, will be closer to her ideal audience experience.

“I’m so excited about getting back to live shows,” Tones And I said. “You picture going back on stage, but obviously you don’t expect people to be seated. I am really looking forward to playing in Darwin with no restrictions.”

For musicians, COVID-normal means navigating between audiences standing in some states, and being required to be seated and spaced out in others. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Dempsey said musicians, particularly from Melbourne, are so desperate to play live the configuration of the audience won’t matter.

“Seated versus standing does make a difference,” he said.

“It’s not the same as having a heaving crowd dancing. But it doesn’t make the act of playing music any less enjoyable, it just looks different. The transfer of energy between the audience and stage will feel different, but all of that is well outweighed by the relief of being able to play live.”

The music industry is also scratching their collective chins about the different audience allowances for sporting events compared to live musical events.

The NRL grand final ran with 40,000 fans at Sydney Olympic Stadium (which holds 85,000), while 30,000 fans were allowed into the AFL Grand Final at the Gabba in Queensland, just 8000 shy of usual capacity.

In Melbourne Carols by Candlelight has to run with no audience for the first time in its long history at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on December 24 due to safety concerns, while just two days later 25,000 fans will be allowed into the MCG for the Boxing Day Test.

“We all saw the photos of people queuing out the front of the footy, people rubbing shoulders with people they didn’t know,” McDonald said. “It’s frustrating. No one in the music industry is trying to take shortcuts, the last thing anyone wants is to be the event where there’s an outbreak or to put any punters at risk. But it certainly raises some eyebrows.”

International tours are likely to be off the table until at least mid 2021. So it’s all about national tours now. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Paul Dempsey agreed the different treatment of sport and musical events was curious.

“Ask anybody in the music industry and you’ll be met with the same degree of baffled bemusement that one thing is OK for sports but not for music,” Dempsey said. “That’s the history of Australia though. I’m as much of a sports fan as the next person but it’s inconsistent and unfair.”

Singer Missy Higgins said it highlighted how sports (which generates millions each year from betting) and music have been treated in Australia.

“There’s definitely always been more funding for sport in this country than there has been in the arts,” Higgins said.

“No doubt. Sometimes I wish we put even half the importance we put on sports, onto our arts and art education.

“The camaraderie and sense of community spirit and fitness that sport provides us is of course super important and great, but we cannot forget how colourless and lacklustre our country would be if it wasn’t for music, art, dancing, sculpture, poetry, all of it. We would be a boring, monotone shell of ourselves and it’s a terrifying thought. I think art should be right up there as equal importance as sport. Sport is the expression of the physical, art is the expression of the soul. Both need tending to.”

McDonald said no international touring was a bonus to the local industry.

“It’s the time for Australian acts to shine, they’ve missed out on gigs for most of this year. They can hopefully come back twice as hard next year while the international artists aren’t here.”

Something For Kate will appear on The Sound on ABC at 6pm Sunday

Red Hot Summer Tour promoter Duane McDonald on the state of music in each state

Northern Territory: “It’s a pretty small market for a promoter, but they’ve had no cases there for a long time, so it’s been business as usual at concerts longer than anyone else.”

Western Australia: “There’s still restrictions over there, so they’re cautious, but they’re doing very well, our shows there are selling like crazy.”

Victoria: “It’s moving in the right direction, they’ve taken some pretty big steps, but it’s still a wait and see.”

New South Wales: “They’ve been cautious in staggering increases in capacity, that’s understandable. Victoria and New South Wales had the most cases so it’s understandable they’re cautious.”

Queensland: “The live scene is strong, but people are still mindful, they’re happy to be back at shows so they’re sticking to the rules.”

Tasmania: “They’re in line with the other states, capacities are relatively low for shows there but they love their live music.”

South Australia: “Hopefully they’re on their way back after this recent outbreak, things were going really well before that, we’ve had to drop some capacities to comply with their safety guidelines.”

Originally published as Live music: Your state-by-state guide to COVID-safe gigs