Your Shout
It was 26 June 2021 – the first concert at the Berlin Waldbühne, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s end-of-season concert 2021: 6,500 people – full joy! Peter Schwenkow | Deutsche Entertainment AG Does an impromptu concert for two by a Spanish folk singer and his partner, in a beautiful cortijo near Granada [Spain], on a hot summer evening in July count? It was pretty special! Or do you mean a concert of a more “traditional” kind? I’m still waiting for one of those… Gill Park | MGR Touring The wildly positive Lusitanian artist Sara Tavares visited our Ancient Theatre Plovdiv earlier this year. The last time her band had performed was in 2019, and it was again at a show that I promoted at club Joy Station. When they arrived in Bulgaria, the faces of Sara and the band were like the faces of the people you want to see when you’ve come out the other side of a long and dark tunnel (not dissimilar to the one Andy Dufresne crosses in The Shawshank Redemption). When Sara stepped onto the stage, the emotion that overtook the audience spilled over to the band and to us behind the stage. It was an electrifying and joyous occasion. We all had “something in our eye.” Boyan Robert Pinter | Panharmony.net Genesis finally taking to the stage in Birmingham, 18 months after they rehearsed. John Giddings | Solo Agency A private show of a close friend, in front of ten invited people/friends, where he presented tracks he’s written and recorded over a year, mostly at home, and will likely never be released. This reminded me, once again at its purest, what my job as agent and manager is all about: the music, art, and working with good human beings. Kai Lehmann | Cabin Artists My best live music moment in 2021 must be OMD playing at indigo at The O2. We were still running socially distanced shows, and we had about 400 attendees in rather than a full house. It was my first ‘post-pandemic’ show at ‘my’ venue, which was already exciting enough. But I will forever remember the moment the house lights went down, the band’s intro started, and how loud and excited the crowd was when the band stepped on stage. It felt like a full house, the adrenaline and excitement was palpable. I felt it in my stomach, and couldn’t help crying tears of
joy! I will always keep that moment with me. Angela Curiello | indigo at The O2 H.E.R. at New York’s Apollo Theater. It was a private show hosted by Sirius XM and Pandora Small Stage series and was magical. The vibe of the soulful audience in the 1,500-seat venue, located in Harlem, was an incredible two-hour-plus groove. One of the non-musical highlights was when she mentioned the last time she performed at the venue, for the weekly talent show Showtime at The Apollo, when she was the age of nine! The November concert was certainly a homecoming in many ways, following the strange year (or two) we’ve had. Brian Kabatznick | Oak View Group My best musical moment was attending the first live show, following the shutdown, for one of my clients. Even though it was an outdoor ‘drive-in’, socially distanced, limited-capacity event in a fairground, with limited production, it signalled that we could eventually get back to (somewhat) normality. Wayne Forte | Entourage Talent
My best live music moment was during Music & Media in Tampere, Finland. The entire Music & Media team had worked its ass off to be able to bring the entire Finnish music sector and a large amount of internationals together – 550 people in total – safely, responsibly, and sustainably, even if there were simply horrible difficulties and risks in doing so. At the very same time, we had the most incredible piece of music ever created, Verdi’s Requiem, at the main auditorium. It was sold out for two shows at 2,000 capacity and 320 people on stage. I handpicked six people from the Industry Awards Gala and took them to witness Verdi in the VIP section, and we saw the magnificent ending, Dies Irae, with a 200-strong choir, four international top-notch soloists, and a 100-strong full symphony orchestra. I was not the only one who was moved: every single music industry head honcho was in tears. For all of us, it really felt like an interpretation of everything we all have felt and gone through in the past two years: “The day of wrath, […] that day will break up the world into ash. Lord, grant us all rest. Amen.” Paulina Ahokas | Tampere Hall Magazine
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