THE REAWAKENING: Performing Artists Like Weeds in Wake of Pandemic
Lo’, while mighty oaks are felled by the terrible storm, the humble grasses survive.
Sorry to compare performing artists to weeds – but here we are, after what feels like emerging from a coma, fully vaxxed and waxxed (this may sting a bit), and ready to be live entertained once again. Today! Canada Day, July 1, 2021, is the grand reopening in Alberta. Masks are off. Gigs are on. We’ve been dying for this.
It’s no secret that live entertainment infrastructure and businesses stumbled and crumbled under the pandemic, while government bumbled. Things changed. Paradigms shifted. People lost their jobs, their careers; some learned new skills, got new jobs. Some didn’t.
The artists in our area remained, well, artists. There don’t seem to be any missing. I counted. They adapted, as one does. As Edmonton funnyman Donovan Workun said when the shutdown inspired him to put on intimate backyard comedy shows for tips, “Well, I guess we’ll be birthday clowns now.”
Sure, the first pandemic shutdown back in 2020 was fun for the already anti-social types, but the joke got old as it kept going on and on. Online shows were tried to little success, because nothing – nothing! – compares to a live show. GigCity, as a website dedicated to live entertainment coverage in Edmonton, was completely flattened. With no gigs, we rebranded as a comics site, with ongoing excellent work by Chad Huculak (End of the Earth), Stephen Notley (Bob the Angry Flower) and Bill Benson (Social Distancing Happenings). Please read them and get their jokes, if you dare. When the hockey came back, Brent Oliver and Craig Douglas resurrected their IN THE BOX column that had been so popular in the now defunct VUE Weekly magazine. They’ll be back next season. Hockey on an arts website! Who could’ve imagined?
Now back to the gigs. Too many to list here. OK, one – Rage Against the Machine, May 7, 2022, Rogers Place.
Taking free rein of Edmonton’s live entertainment beat for GigCity this summer will be MacEwan University journalism student Gwyneth Bignell. She’s looking forward to getting back to normal.
“Live music has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember,” she says, “from watching my older siblings in their recitals for various instruments to going to my first music festival with my dad. Live music is fundamental to who I am. I could not be more eager to be back in a crowded room with a bunch of strangers all yelling the same lyrics. The return of live entertainment will bring us back together in a way we’ve been lacking but in desperate need of for over a year now. Few things make me as happy, and to experience it from a new perspective, as a writer, is the most exciting opportunity!”
Normal operations to resume shortly.
(Top image: A mural, artist unknown, on a downtown building that burned down years ago)
