Refereed journal article or data article (A1)
A place outside the pandemic? An ethnographic study of live music events at St Gallen's cultural venue Palace during the COVID-19 crisis
List of Authors: Gligorijevic Jelena
Publisher: CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
Publication year: 2022
Journal: Popular Music
Journal name in source: POPULAR MUSIC
Journal acronym: POP MUSIC
Volume number: 41
Issue number: 2
Start page: 216
End page: 237
Number of pages: 22
ISSN: 0261-1430
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0261143022000265
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143022000265
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/176478099
The multiple impacts of COVID-19 on the music-culture industry have been duly discussed in a variety of public discourses, academic and otherwise. However, there is still a dearth of studies that investigate alternative face-to-face practices of live music performance and organisation during the pandemic's significant constraints on social behaviour. The present work aims to fill this gap by offering an anthropological angle on live music practices during COVID-19. It specifically draws on fieldwork that I could carry out in the autumn of 2020 at a live music venue - 'Palace' in the Swiss city of St Gallen - owing to a 'liberal' handling of the COVID-19 crisis by the St Gallen authorities. This article documents accordingly the challenges and adjustments that Palace had to undergo during pandemic times from the perspectives of producers, musicians and audiences alike. The primary focus here is on exploring changes in the venue's management, programming, audience composition and especially the musical-aesthetic experience of the venue's pandemic-compliant gigs. Finally, the article draws on the musings of my interlocutors as to whether Palace was in their experience a place outside the pandemic, to tackle the larger question of how COVID-19 has affected people's perceptions of live gigs and urban nightlife more generally.
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