Music Features

Dr. Fauci Says Live Music Could Return This Fall

"By the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience," Dr. Fauci said.

Aside from those who crowded a fated Chainsmokers concert in the Hamptons last summer, music fans in the United States are going on a year without a typical live music experience.

Though livestreams and drive-ins have been able to hold most of us over in the meantime, social distancing regulations have taken a big emotional toll on concert goers — not to mention the financial burdens it's ravaged on artists as well as independent venues, which are closing by the numbers nationwide. Things might be looking up by the end of 2021, though.

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MUSIC

Is Virtual Reality the Future of Concerts? Rezz's EP Debut Showed the Potential (and the Glitches)

EDM artist and multimedia pioneer Rezz released her newest EP last night—in an unconventional format.

Rezz "Beyond The Senses" In Virtual Reality!

At 3 PM in Los Angeles, the EDM artist Rezz began performing her EP, which would be released on streaming services later that night.

She played live, under a vast starry sky, as a massive skull floated over her head.

Meanwhile, at 6 PM at the VR Space in Koreatown, New York, I slipped on the Oculus and entered that starlit venue, which was simultaneously out of this world and accessible from anywhere if you happened to have access to a headset. It took me a while to figure out how to use the set, and some kinks were definitely still being worked out with the app—but soon enough, I was standing inside an alien landscape, staring up at streams of code floating in the sky. I'd entered an alternate dimension without taking a single step.

That's the power of the virtual reality concert, which Rezz used to premier her EP, Beyond the Senses. Using the app TheWaveVR, which has helped other artists such as Imogen Heap perform shows in the virtual realm, Rezz effectively played a show in multiple places at once. Her show also featured the platform Twitch, actually allowing fans to influence the visuals in real time as the performance unfolded.

REZZ - "Beyond The Senses" LIVE world premiere listening partywww.youtube.com

The performance began with the song "Dark Age," which places minor-key guitar riffs over a slow-moving beat to create a dark, mystical haze. It was the perfect initiation to the strange, holographic, industrial world that audience members were transported into.

"Is it enough that I feel like I'm falling / is it enough that I can't stop?" sings Underoath on the EP's second track, "Falling." Like the first track, it blends elements of emo rock with EDM beats. Its lyrics might as well be talking about the rapidly advancing pace of technology, which has changed the DNA of the music industry, altering everything about how music is created and consumed.

The third track Rezz performed, "Kiss of Death," plants industrial beats against floaty, hyper-processed vocals, to create a psychedelic soundscape. The EP's final track, "Lonely (feat. the Rigs)," is one of its best, using a sultry beat to pull audiences in, then breaking down into a sparse, echoey drop in the second half.

Overall, Rezz's EP is a tightly wound, high-stakes collection of furious rhythms and alternatively harsh and dreamlike soundscapes. Certainly, if any genre is to be matched with VR, it would be this kind of disorienting, intensely transportive emo-EDM fusion. VR and EDM blend together perfectly, both using synthetic sounds and super-advanced processing techniques to create otherworldly dimensions that test the limits of space and sound, all through the mediums of MIDI and code.

In a virtual reality concert, you lose some of the vividness and impact of real shows—for example, you don't get the pounding, booming grind of a live bass or the smoke and sweat of a real venue (depending on your headphones and surroundings, of course). But in the technosphere, things that could never have happened in the real world become possible. Red lightning flared out of Rezz's hands as soldiers, gigantic hands, and disembodied objects careened like UFOs through the space. Sinewy tendrils floated across the domed sky, reflecting the soundwaves. Huge trees grew towards the stars, then split into smoke. Other concertgoers looked like floating Pillsbury Doughboys with screen names glowing above their heads.

VR concerts have not become quite as popular as people thought they might when the Oculus debuted, maybe because of the cumbersome nature of the headset, the likelihood of glitches, or the still-holographic appearance of the simulated performers. Still, acts like Rezz's prove that there's still a very promising future for VR, which has the potential to revolutionize the touring industry. She's not alone in taking advantage of the medium. Recently, the startup MelodyVR signed deals with 600 artists, including Jay-Z, and festivals such as Coachella and Global Citizen have both incorporated VR into their concert-going experiences.

Many have raised the concern that VR concerts might not be the best thing for music. After all, touring is one of the most profitable parts of modern musicians' careers, and if audience members start choosing to stream shows through VR instead of paying for a live experience, this could threaten the lucrative stadium circuit.

It's hard to deny the amazing spectrum of possibilities that VR presents for music, though. Audience members could immerse themselves in music videos or communicate directly with each other and the performers, or they could see shows they were previously unable to access or afford. In addition, VR audiences can't use cell phones (yet), so they have to focus solely on the music.

Image via thissongissick.com

And just imagine if musicians never had to board a plane to perform, and if you never had to miss a concert again—if all you had to do was slip on a headset in order to enter an alternate dimension of your favorite musician's design?

VR could very well determine the future of music. Before that happens, though, there's still work to be done. I was able to see Rezz's broadcast, but the whole time I was gaping at the beauty of the simulated landscape and testing out my new virtual body, I couldn't hear any music. Staff members were running around, trying to fix the glitch and promising that it wasn't caused by their software; by the time they got it working, the show had finished.

The experience revealed that although VR concerts have huge potential, for now, there's still nothing to rival good old-fashioned live music.

Music Features

Vince Staples Honors Mac Miller in "Smile, You're On Camera" Tour

Vince Staples, JPEGMAFIA, and Katori Walker Rock an Historical Theatre in Ithaca, New York.

Vince Staples

Brandon Nagy/Shutterstock

A Night of Powerful Hip Hop Transforms Ithaca's State Theatre.

The State Theatre in Ithaca, New York is far from the sort of venue in which one might expect to see an act like Vince Staples perform. The stage, framed with intricate baroque sculptures, carvings, and medieval shields, gives the impression that this theatre has seen significantly more Shakespeare than bass-heavy, bone-rattling hip-hop. But, then again, Vince Staples is not your run-of-the-mill emcee. Staples is unique, which has always shone through in his music. That shine, as it turns out, is just as bright in his live show.

The March 1st concert marked the beginning of the second half of his 37-city "Smile, You're on Camera" tour, but the raw energy of all three acts could have fooled you into thinking that the tour was just getting started.

Katori Walker — a rapper from Pasadena, California — kicked the show off with heavy tracks about gang violence interweaved with calls for peace and unity. The crowd seemed relatively unfamiliar with Walker but gradually warmed up to his music over the course of his set. It's safe to say that he made more than a few new fans that night.

Once Walker finished, Baltimore rapper JPEGMAFIA took the stage and did nothing to prepare besides setting up his laptop. The rapper, who sometimes goes by Peggy, acted as his own DJ, playing his songs on Spotify and rapping over them. Well, to put it more accurately, what he did was closer to screaming rhymes over glitchy, experimental beats. The energy was crazy, and the whole thing was very punk rock.

But the contrast to Staples' characteristically buttery flow and lyrical precision was jarring, and the set came across as sloppy and abrasive. But the crowd appeared to disagree, rising to meet Peggy's chaotic energy. The audience seemed to know every lyric, and they screamed them along with Peggy as he flailed and moshed about the stage, providing almost as much energy as a young Black Flag.

At around 10:30, with the crowd now sufficiently amped up, Vince Staples finally took to the stage. In stark contrast to JPEGMAFIA's stripped down, hardcore set, Staples took a more theatrical approach, employing an elaborate light show, enough smoke machines to keep him almost perpetually cloaked in a dense and eerie fog, and projections of cracked TV screens alternately broadcasting flashes of porn and live views of the audience and the emcee himself.

Through the cinematic and interactive experience, Staples drove home the theme of the tour: Smile, You're on Camera.

He opened his set with "Feels Like Summer," the first track off his latest album, FM! During this number, Staples opted to keep the screen mostly black, minimizing distractions and allowing him to captivate the audience with his confident stage presence and bars.

Not only was the set design and overall concept of the show creative and engaging, but Staples' performance was masterful. His flow and delivery were spot-on and controlled, never missing a beat. He paced himself well, demonstrated expert breath control, and kept up with even the most complex, rapid-fire, and tongue-twisting schemes in his catalog.

Seldom have I seen an emcee spit his bars live with such precision and care that they sound as if they could have been the original studio recordings. This is just one more piece of evidence added to an already sprawling list as to why Vince Staples is one of the best in the game right now.

After performing the majority of FM! (a remarkably short album, even in full) and plenty of classics off both the critically acclaimed record, Big Fish Theory and a fan favorite, Summertime '06, Staples shifted the attention off himself and dedicated the last fifteen minutes of his set to late rapper, Mac Miller, who passed away last September of an accidental overdose. The two emcees were contemporaries and longtime collaborators and friends, so it was touching to see Staples pay his respects to Miller.

Staples ended his set with "Yeah Right," and then thanked the audience for coming. As he exited the stage, the lights did not come up. Instead, the entirety of Mac Miller's NPR Tiny Desk concert played on the screen from start to finish. Mac Miller was transported beyond the grave to be on tour with Staples so the two could rock the same stage one last time.

Seeing Miller perform stripped down versions of his songs was a powerful moment for many in the crowd. More than a few audience members were brought to tears.

It's rare that we are blessed with an emcee like Vince Staples — someone who is just as raw, real, and complex as his music. If you have the chance to go see him for the second leg of this tour, you definitely should. And if you aren't already familiar with Vince Staples' music, there's a good chance you will be in the years to come. At just 25 years old, he's only going up from here.


Dustin DiPaulo is a writer and musician from Rochester, New York. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University and can most likely be found at a local concert, dive bar, or comedy club if he's not getting lost somewhere in the woods.


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