When the pandemic forced most places and activities down, many concerts were cancelled as well. Many concerts bring people with similar music taste together to feel like a family for a few hours.

Students like freshman Nikki Carnegis express their sadness in regards to concert cancellations, but understand why these decisions were made.

“I’ve missed Foreigner, the Foo Fighters, Guns N’ Roses, and Billy Joel due to COVID-19,” Carnegis said. “…I believe they handled the situation well. If they hadn’t cancelled then many people would have got sick.”

While some more popular bands seemed to be fine with the shut down, others may have needed those concerts to pay bills. Many smaller bands might have suffered during COVID-19, coming up with alternative ways to get money. Some have been producing more music, some have been selling signed shirts and records and others have been making other solutions. 

Bands like Crowned in Chains have been forced to adapt in order to continue to play gigs.

“When everything first went down, we completely stopped, which was hard,” frontman Daniel Sherman said. “We had a ton of gigs planned and we had studio sessions booked, we had to cancel all that so it was a real bummer. Now we’ve actually been in the studio and we’ve played an outdoor restaurant… It just meant finding the right place to practice that allowed us to distance and also get done what we needed to get done safely.”

Sherman also discusses how bands and crew have worked through the pandemic.

“We’re missing a lot of our crew and it makes it harder for us to record,” Sherman said. “I’m actually working on my solo music, and I’ve been recording it all by myself. I’ve been playing around with mixing and producing and a bunch of other things.”

It is not clear when concerts will return to normal, but many bands and fans are hoping for that day.

“I feel like we’ll still have effects from this pandemic for years, so we just have to adapt to the circumstances because we have to, not because we want to,” Sherman said.