The road to get to this one was long and fraught, but the outcome could have probably been predicted.
Upon first learning that DEVO were returning to Radio City Music Hall for the first time in 40 (!!!) years, I immediately purchased tickets. You have to remember, this was in, what, May? At the time, hopes and expectations were skyrocketing. People here in New York City were getting their second vaccination shots. A long, miserable winter under the dark cloud of COVID-19 seemed to be abating. People were making plans again. Things were opening up.
From the get-go, however, this event seemed star-crossed. Regular readers might remember a bizzarre episode in June wherein a package mysteriously showed up for me at the address of my former apartment on East 12th Street, … a place I hadn’t lived for about twenty years. When I went over to retrieve the enigmatic package, it ended up being my Devo tickets. Ticketmaster had sent them to the only address they had for me on file. It was only by sheer luck that the guy who took the apartment after me had the good will and consideration to hold onto my phone number. Those tickets could very easily have gone completely astray.
When I got home, my wife obliviously threw the FedEx envelope containing those tickets down the garbage shoot, thinking it was just an empty mailer I’d absent-mindedly left on my bureau. Upon learning that, while I descended into a foamy-mouth depression/rage spiral, my intrepid son Oliver went splelunking in our building’s trash compactor and actually RETRIEVED THE TICKETS!
The fates were playing with me.
As we soldiered on through the summer, however, a bigger problem was brewing. Despite the few highs and many lows of everything that had transpired since March of 2020 – the harrowing death toll, the upending of our normal routines, the crippling inefficacy and duplicitous bullshit of the Trump Administration’s mishandling of the crisis, the promsie of medical science delivering effective vaccines, the inevitable arrival of a more-transmitable mutation of the virus dubbed the Delta Variant – it suddenly became apparent that a staggering number of Americans were skeptical and/or reluctant to get vaccinated, opting instead to espouse conspiracy theories and even champion frankly ludicrous alternatives like horse dewormer to flaunt what they’re now calling “medical tyranny.”
Long story short: Because too many Americans are simply too fucking stupid, COVID-19 is still very much here. As they saying goes, this is why we can’t have nice things.
That means that contrary to our hopes and expectations from back in the Spring, we are very much NOT out of the woods, as yet. As a result, folks responsible for staging and producing events, concerts, festivals and the like are now all questioning whether to go ahead as planned.
DEVO posted this morning – the day before the scheduled performance -- on their Instagram account the following missive:
NYC! We are very sorry to announce that due to circumstances beyond our control and the current state of the world due to Covid 19, we had to postpone our upcoming show at Radio City Music Hall this Tuesday.
We will be announcing a new NYC date for 2022 very shortly. Stay tuned.
Refunds are available from point of purchase and we look forward to seeing you again in NYC soon.
The comments started flowing immediately. Pulling the plug on the event the day before seems like an especially harsh blow, especially for folks who were traveling here, but it’s more than likely that the said decision was made by the global entertainment promoter, Live Nation, and not the band (who have been regularly touting the upcoming date). Some embittered spuds went so far as to suggest that the real reason was low ticket sales, but that doesn’t quite add up. Were that the case, the event would probably have been re-designated to a smaller venue as opposed to being postponed entirely.
Personally speaking, I am pretty goddamned disappointed. As invoked numerous times here, Devo’s 1981 show at Radio City Music Hall was my first-ever concert and verily a life-changing and trajectory-informing experience. The thought of seeing them again in that amazing room was genuinely thrilling for me.
But, … I get it. I’m not happy about it, but because we collectively are too fucking slackjawed to get our shit together, it’s not safe or prudent to hold this event right now. So be it. If ever it becomes safe again, … I’ll be ready.
Get vaxxed or get fucked.
Recent Comments