Is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved? Are concerts anything like that??
I ask because, let’s face it, we went from going to shows and probably not thinking twice about them (even if we, admittedly, in hindsight see now that we should have been a tad more grateful and in the moment than we were sometimes. By “we”, I of course mean “I”), to not having them at all. Then, during the last several months, we had them again, only to have a lot of them canceled again.
Personally, I haven’t had the chance to see that many shows again. I went to a few concerts in the park, which were just community events with no big names to mention. I’ve performed in several others with my community band. As of this writing, I haven’t gone to a single other concert, although I have four scheduled for the coming months. If, of course, they go forward. The jury is still out on that.
I’m wondering how many more times we’ll go through this. There are my super dark moments when I wonder if we will ever get back to normal. What is normal??
There are times when I feel like it would be better for me personally to just accept the inevitable. Yes, I might be able to see live bands again. Those very small, backyard-type gigs, like the ones we have in my town or nearby in Paso Robles. Big time gigs though? Even ones at places like Vina Robles or the Mid State Fair? We did have Jason Derulo this summer at the Fair, but others were canceled because of Covid-19 exposures. We don’t have larger arenas near us, and I don’t have any sense of whether those gigs are going forward. That said, we have had events near us canceled in the past few days. It’s similar to 2020 all over again…in different ways.
Will we ever get back to normal?
I don’t even remember what normal is anymore. The very idea of just deciding to go to dinner and roll up to a restaurant without having checked their website for hours, or Yelp for information about what their Covid-19 protocols might be is almost foreign at this point. We’ve had school sports programs given back to us, only to have them taken away again (just got that email this morning). We went from no concerts, to buying a series of tickets to four upcoming bands at our local outdoor amphitheater, to getting an email that vaccines are required (good), to now where bands are beginning to cancel again. It is a roller coast of excitement, and depression. I’m tired of it. Yes, I can and will keep going, but that doesn’t mean I’m not tired. It doesn’t mean YOU aren’t tired. I miss just being a fan.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for my life and those around me. As bad as the pandemic has been, I’ve watched enough disaster movies, and read enough of those same types of novels to know it could have been much worse. Please read that sarcasm. I mean, if we can dream it up and write about it, the sky must be the limit, right? I can’t help but wonder though, if this…this current state of affairs… is it. As long as there’s the risk of the virus, and as long as the current vaccine doesn’t guarantee 100% immunity (no vaccine does), and as long as there are people out there who are now saying that FDA approval “means nothing”… where in the heck do we go from here?
It is hard to remain hopeful, yet for me it is even worse to think of the alternative. I am definitely in the “it is better to have loved and lost than never loved” group.
Ever hopeful those Birmingham shows go forward without a problem and that I will soon be reading the set lists, completely green with envy….
-R
