What is the best live event you’ve watched in quarantine?
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Just because we’re all stuck inside doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy some live entertainment, so this week associate editor Laura Adamczyk is asking:
What is the best live event you’ve watched in quarantine?
Danette Chavez
Months ago, I bought tickets to an Old 97’s show at Evanston’s SPACE venue, which, like everything else, was canceled earlier this spring. But Rhett Miller, bless his soft boy heart, has been performing a series of weekly shows from home via Stageit. Last week, I was able to livestream his full play of Too Far To Care, one of my absolute favorite albums. Miller made the show feel cozy yet rowdy, kicking things off with the closer “Timebomb,” and sharing great stories about life on the road. It wasn’t quite the same as watching the full band play the album at the Vic, which I did for my birthday in 2012, but at last I didn’t have to figure out how to get home after.
Laura Adamczyk
For me, the best live events right now are those that ask little to nothing of viewers. Even just listening to literary readings or discussions engage me more directly than I want to be engaged, which is why I’ve been grateful for friends’ DJ nights and listening parties. I sit on my couch, make myself a drink, and sometimes read while tuning in. The most I participate is typing a “hell yeah” into Twitch’s chat window whenever I really like a song or transition. A.V. Club contributor Marty Sartini Garner has spun a couple times since the shutdown was instated, and they’ve been incredibly chill, fun nights (he usually announces his sessions on his Twitter account). There’s always something great I’ve never heard before, like Jorge Ben Jor’s “Zumbi,” and all I have to do is write down the name and look into the band or musician later, or not.
Katie Rife
Live performance moving online has had the unintended effect of allowing folks spread around the country—and the world—to find their tribe via different paths, which brings me to the Big Ass Telethon To End Metronormativity. Early on in the crisis, an Instagram account I follow called Queer Appalachia made a post in which they noted that disabled and/or rural people in their network were experiencing queer nightlife for the first time now that it had moved online, which got me thinking about the phenomenon in a new way. They followed through with the telethon, in which drag performers, musicians, comedians, and activists whose work normally doesn’t get seen by urban eyeballs like mine came right into my living room. Hannah Mayree played the banjo, Erin McKeown and Shamir played guitar, Davey Swinton lip-synched to “Dancing With Myself” encased in a giant plastic bubble, and JayBella Banks twerked behind bottles of hand sanitizer to the tune of “Fuck Corona.” It’s not an exaggeration to say it restored my faith in humanity, and they’re throwing another one on Twitch on May 29, should you like to feel creatively reinvigorated as well.
Shannon Miller
It’s official: Saturday nights are now Verzuz Nights in my household. These friendly “battles” between some of the biggest figures in Black music have morphed into virtual must-watch events with my friends as we relive our collective youth, hit after well-worn hit. They’ve become the centerpiece of any Saturday night plans we may attempt to have (perhaps foolishly, as menacing tech issues have cut more than one battle short). More than the music, I love watching pop culture icons take a moment to pay tribute to each other, even as they boast of their own successful careers. I never thought I’d spend this much time on Instagram voluntarily, but for once I’m happier for it.
Randall Colburn
One of my favorite podcasts, Blocked Party, was set to host its first live show just before the lockdowns went into effect, but it made a quick pivot into livestreams, which have become one of the only virtual events I’ve been spurred to attend. So far, the shows find Blocked Party and a guest relaying good stories about getting blocked on Twitter—the podcast’s raison d’etre—alongside videos of the weirdest clips they’ve found (or purchased) on Cameo. But the latest featured the funniest, most jaw-droppingly disturbing clips they’ve dug up on YouTube. Considering co-host Stefan Heck is one of our foremost curators of online cringe, the results weren’t your typical viral cache. You have to donate to their Patreon for access, but, considering Blocked Party has offered me more laughs than anyone since quarantine started, I’d say it’s more than worth it.
39 Comments
Its a personal thing. It was a charity stream featuring the voices of the Disney Princesses, the charity was Make a Wish. The lady who voices Belle, Paige O’Hara, it my absolute hero. Met her twice, couldn’t say a bad thing about her. The whole thing put the biggest smile on my face. Worth every penny.
My local underground club is finally back and just the other day I saw Johnny “Switch Back)“ Johnson eliminate (maybe with extreme prejudice) Vinny “The Unfortunate” Vanilla in the ring.
I saw a couple of siblings try to kill each other.
No one wants to hear about the weird underage fight clubs you subscribe to. No one except me.
That’s not weird. The weird part is they still won’t act on our advice to tape a white line down the center of the house (a la sitcom). Imagine the hilarity when one discovers the other gets the bathroom, or that one has entire kitchen? The audience will go nuts when the mailman brings a long-awaited package for one of them but the front door is on the other’s side of the house!
At least you decided to profit from it via streaming video. The ‘we both have a date with the same person on the same night’ episode was particularly delightful.
Well, it wasn’t live, but I did pay for it. Support Instagram sex workers.
IG doesn’t even allow nudity, why would I support that?
They only use Instagram as their selling point. Their content is not on Instagram itself.
The band Local H put on two concerts from their bunker. The first was an album release, they were going to play the album recording but FB told them they didn’t have the rights. So instead, they played a bunch of the new songs live and then played a bunch of covers. They streamed it all on FB, IG live, Twitter, and Youtube.
The main singer for my favorite band (Jukebox the Ghost) does a livestream every Friday at noon where he plays piano and takes requests for about 30-45 minutes. It’s always a bright spot of my week and makes working from home a little more fun.
Here’s a live cam from some little-traveled corner of Venice: I just put it on one of my monitors and let it play (muted). I occasionally look over at it. Nothing really happens. I love it.
I just saw one person walk up and over that bridge. Yeah, that’s nice. Minus all the death and chaos, I really kinda wish the world was like that more often.
The amazing thing about Venice is if you steer clear of the touristy spots (St. Mark’s Square, etc.) it’s mostly a scenic little village like this webcam.
Ah, Venice.
Or you can always check out hundreds of other cities across Italy that have few tourists.
Yeah. During peak lock down, it was surreal. https://www.skylinewebcams.com/it/webcam/italia/veneto/venezia/piazza-san-marco.html
Wow. I can’t decide if this makes me want to go back to Venice or play Assassin’s Creed 2 again. Maybe I’ll do both.
Same. I came across a site that had webcams situated in major tourist spots around the world. Seeing the Trevi Fountain area completely empty other than the odd patrolling police officers walking about was so surreal. Especially St. Mark’s Square and the Spanish Steps! https://www.skylinewebcams.com/it/webcam/italia/lazio/roma/fontana-di-trevi.html
Until you witness a murder! Rear Window for the Internet era (has it been made yet?)
Only sort of on topic but I saw Daniel Kitson introduce a recording of The Interminable Suicide Of Gregory Church on Thursday night and that was a real highlight as I never thought I’d get to see it.
Recorded live: Idles – Live at BataclanPunk inspired chaos with an uplifting, inclusive message
Actually live: Dropkick Murphy’s St Patrick’s Day livestream
Emily Scott Robinson does a show each week from her RV.If you haven’t heard of her, fix it! It’s the type of music the AV Club used to cover, when they employed critics rather than content mills.
The Stephen Sondheim 90th birthday concert was phenomenal and jam packed with some of the biggest talents on Broadway:
Oh yeah that was pretty damn sweet. I’m a big Betty Buckley fan for the record.
Does watching my co-worker show me his new kittens over Zoom count? They were awfully cute, trying to decide if they should fight or lick one another.
Those weren’t kittens.
‘Live’ is so difficult to locate. ‘Recorded live’ is another category and there’s lots & lots of examples that come to mind.
Thanks for sharing them.
As a golf fan, the TaylorMade Driving Relief match which aired last week would be my choice. They had big names and I liked the format and it was great that it ended with a $1.1m closest to the pin challenge. Only bad thing about it was the Trump interview.Excited for the Tiger, Phil, Peyton, and Brady match tomorrow.
either the community table read or ken jeong’s podcast reunion
If you’re into Art Bell, radio plays, and/or the paranormal, the theater I work with is doing a neat production this month called “Radio Free Europa” (shameless self-promotion alert: I wrote it and did the sound design). We’re doing a live radio play that we’re streaming on YouTube from now until June 7th- every Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm MST, Sundays at 2pm. The premise is that it all takes place in a call-in AM radio show (a la “Coast to Coast AM”) where the host fields calls about UFOs, Sasquatches, dead pop stars, and other weird phenomena from her listeners while also contending with strange disruptions to her broadcast. In addition to live sound effects, we added an additional element to make it a more engaging virtual show experience than just pointing a webcam at a table read: we got an artist to create a “Waking Life” style slideshow of over 600 images (using the actors as models). So the whole show is kinda like what would happen if you Brundlefly’d a radio play and a visual novel together.So, yeah: if you’re into theatre, radio plays, or weird shit in general, check it out at bit.ly/Space55. The show is FREE and runs about 95 minutes.
Best live event? That’s easy. Watching Trump bury himself deeper (and looking like he’s shitting himself when a reporter goes “Boo!”) every time he steps in front of a camera. Most everything else I see has been recorded.
For me there is only one answer…. while everything was being locked down there was for at least a few days still one major sporting event going strong: The Candidates Tournament, the most important and prestigious tournament in chess that determines who will go toe to toe against the current world champion Magnus Carlsen. The logic behind holding the match was that since Yekaterinburg, the town where the even was held, was far away from the outbreak they could make it relatively safe. This was not without controversy since one of the players, Radjabov, from Azerbaijan, withdrew at the last moment because he didn’t feel comfortable playing and was replaced by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who so far has had a very strong performance that might be enough to win the tournament. Lots of exciting matches happened until, alas, the later rounds of the tournament ended up being postponed since the borders of many countries would be shutting down very shortly and the players would end up stranded in Russia.
I’ve only watched old NoMeansNo shows (i get the redundancy of that statement). Other than that, I’m not sure I’ve seen anything live…I might hop on and game if anyone wants to….anyone? I’m all alone and drinking beer! Help me feel better about myself!
Master Pancake Theater are hosting streams of their live movie mocks on Twitch. Every Wed/Fri/Sat at 8pm CST. Very funny comedy out of Austin
At the time of this writing – one of the art house theaters support has been doing live seminars/q&as on select films as part of their programming while the main theater is closed. Attended their q&a on Night of the Living Dead which was a pretty enjoyable discussion to sit in on.That said, that may change tonight – there’s going to be a streaming of the movie Shogun Assassin tonight with live commentary by RZA.
As far as I can tell, tickets still available:
https://cinema.36chambers.com/
Wow, not one Verzuz shoutout in the comments? I also have been watching weekly and, technical issues aside, it has been GREAT! As a a Jamaican who grew up in the south, the past two weeks’s battles of Ludacris v Nelly and Beenie Man v. Bounty Killa respectively have put me in HEAVEN, so much so that my (non-Jamaican) wife left the room the second time around hahaha. Can’t wait to see what/who they pull out next.
Well, I guess this question got answered by every major city in the U.S.