In the United States, where concerts have been back many months before here, there’s a debate again in music communities about safety around concerts. Cases are rising again as the Delta variant surges. Unfortunately for the band, Arkells Long Weekend was timed right with what Canadian public health experts are calling the fourth wave. It’s something we’re going to be living with for years, and our post-lockdown return to old rituals like concerts and sports and dining out will inevitably be accompanied by some amount of personal negotiation around what feels comfortable and safe for yourself and others. Gathering so many fans in one place was treated as proof that we could go back to our old lives and celebrate together.īut, even with widespread vaccination, COVID probably won’t have one symbolic end point we can easily point back at in 18 years. The new “SARSstock”?Īrkells and Live Nation seem to be promoting the concerts as a version of SARSstock, the massive 2003 Rolling Stones-headlined concert that heralded Toronto’s return to normalcy following widespread worry of a contagious virus. The 75 per cent capacity crowd of 10,500 all showed up for Arkells. “You allowed yourself to be optimistic!” he exclaimed in congratulation.īut when I tweeted out a photo of the audience, which looked a lot like a packed concert crowd from the before-times, people tweeted back with concern. Is that a good thing? I wavered back and forth on that throughout the night.Īs the members of Arkells walked out on stage together and anticipation filled the air, lead singer Max Kerman told the crowd his own concert drought: 520 days, 12,480 hours, 16 months “but it’s felt like 16 years.” They heralded the fact that everyone was there together as a cause for celebration, a victory over pandemic despair. Looking out over that sea of humanity singing and dancing together, it felt like a lot more than that – it felt like an honest-to-goodness sold-out big-ticket show.Īrkells are a band with boundless positivity, and In the collective energy of a big group of strangers all enjoying the same experience together, it was surprisingly easy to forget the concert was happening during a pandemic. The venue was at 75 per cent capacity – or 10,500 people. There’s been other live music during the pandemic – virtual events, drive-in concerts, underground raves, patio performances and, since Step 3 of reopening kicked in last month, some modest indoor and outdoor shows.īut this show felt like the first big, proper concert event in Toronto since the pandemic started. It was night one of the Arkells Long Weekend, a trio of shows by the Toronto/Hamilton CanRock band at the Ontario Place amphitheatre heralding the return of live music to the city. That drought ended on Friday night at Budweiser Stage. I know because Arkells tweeted out a date calculator for fans to visualize their live music droughts. It’s been 521 days since I last went to a concert. ARKELLS with HAVIAH MIGHTY at Budweiser stage, Friday, August 13.