Live music isn’t dead.
Just ask the owners of a few of the city’s and surrounding suburbs’ most beloved live music venues. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on a number of different industries (including the music community), it has not quelled the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of some local venues. And while fully packed rooms with patrons bumping shoulders is presently a thing of the past, venues have found unique ways to make “live” music live again.
Will Duncan is the new owner of Fitzgerald’s, the popular bar and live music venue in Berwyn, which has been in operation since 1930. After moving to the Western suburbs, Duncan purchased the venue’s two buildings and business on March 5, 2020 from the Fitzgerald family.
Then the pandemic hit.
“You can imagine how nuts that was,” said Duncan. “But I had a lot of energy going into it.”
That “energy” allowed Duncan and his managerial team to quickly experiment and adapt to a rapidly changing entertainment scene.
One of their earliest experiments was a traveling pickup truck concert. During each show, a solo musician performs on the back of a moving pickup truck, making pit stops around the community. “If they can’t come to the club, we wanted to bring it to them,” said Duncan. Since launching in April 2020, the venue has held nearly 70 pickup truck concerts and audiences can book the moving contraption for private events.
But for those who are interested in leaving their homes, some venues have begun to experiment with ways of creating safer, in-person live music performances.
Constellation, the popular experimental jazz and improvisational music venue, began hosting intimate in-person shows last summer. But not every musician who plays at the space will perform in front of a live audience. According to Constellation’s COVID policy, performances start “with the desires and comfort of the performing artist.” Artists can choose between a streaming-only set, a hybrid streaming and in-person performance for a small and invited audience, or a ticketed and socially distanced event for up to 50 audience members. On their website’s page for their COVID policy, the venue states, “This flexible approach allows the performer to choose their comfort level and allows us to navigate new directives from our health officials.”
Thalia Hall recently announced Hall Together, a series of private events. Clients may book a Hall Together event, put together their own guest list of up to 30 people, and work with the booking team at the Pilsen venue to see a live show based on their tastes and interests.
Originally conceptualized last fall, the event package was put on hold when the city’s number of COVID-19 cases began to rise. After getting their staff vaccinated this year, they revisited the idea and launched last month. Each event includes a cocktail hour and an hourlong performance set.
“It’s been an awesome way for folks to safely get out, see their friends and experience a concert, in some respects, while we can’t do full-capacity shows,” said Bobby Ramirez, Thalia Hall’s Director of Music Operations. The venue is booked for weekends through mid-June, though the Hall Together experience is available on any night of the week.
“We hear from artists too. They come in and they play and it’s like a breath of fresh air,” said Ramirez. “It’s an additional opportunity to make money when you haven’t been able to make money on shows for so long. Most of these folks haven’t played for a crowd at all in over a year. And you can just see how much it electrifies everyone in the room the moment that they hit, including the artist.”
But for those interested in a more traditional music experience, Fitzgerald’s has relaunched their outdoor concert series. After first converting their 5000-square foot parking lot into an outdoor concert venue last summer (complete with furniture, a stage and an outdoor bar), the space has reopened after closing down last October. Seating up to 100 people with six feet of distance, the space’s aesthetic and “feel” is like a country hideaway in New Orleans or Austin, Texas. “You kind of forget that you’re on Roosevelt Road. You feel like you’re somewhere else,” Duncan said.
Yet, despite opening up to more members of the public, these venues have not abandoned protocols to keep audiences as safe as possible. Constellation’s COVID-19 policy is outlined in detail on their website and includes, among many other things, rules for cleaning surfaces, hand washing, wearing masks, and physical distancing.
Thalia Hall takes their cues from CDC recommendations as well as updates on the federal, state and local level. They’ve also made connections and sought guidance from other promoters from around the country through the National Independent Venue Association and the Chicago Independent Venue League. Guests also receive an email before their event date which includes house rules and a questionnaire.
“From the get-go, everyone — from the artists to the staff to the guests — needs to know that if you don’t follow our house rules to ensure everyone’s health and safety, there’s a zero-tolerance policy,” said Ramirez. “Even the slightest little looseness in the way that you’re implementing these rules could have a snowballing effect and put more people at risk than you want.”
Like other businesses, survival during our unprecedented times has required venue owners to rapidly adapt and pivot their models from the traditional to the experimental. And while venues begin to claw their ways back into the public consciousness, it may be the venues who’ve spent the last year experimenting who continue to find the most success in a post-pandemic world.
“I was really satisfied by the creativity of the team and our ability to come up with business ideas that worked within guidelines and were very safe,” said Duncan. “I meet people here every day that have been coming here for 30 years and I felt like I had something to prove, in a way. I was oddly energized, and perhaps, naively optimistic.”
Britt Julious is a freelance critic.
