The coronavirus has been quite bad, to put it lightly. It’s brought most of the world to a standstill, wrecked the NHS and caused over 50,000 deaths around the world. Some of the biggest cities have turned into a real-life 28 Days Later, with parts of London and New York being transformed into mobile hospitals to care for those who are ill.
Summer has essentially been cancelled with festivals, sporting events and just about everything else being put off, either until a later date or outright cancelled.
Lockdown, self-isolation and quarantine has also been less than optimal. There’s nothing to do and you start to grow tired of seeing the same 1-5 people every single day, unless you dare venture out of the house more than once per day.
With the current apocalypse, people are not enjoying themselves and want a small break from this very real situation and for that reason I decided to write about something completely trivial and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, which has become a trend throughout my blogs.
So, when boredom strikes, Instagram Live comes in clutch. Why would you want to be in lockdown, when you can watch a celebrity be in lockdown?
Now that musicians can’t tour and celebrities can’t ring paparazzi to ‘catch them’ at some fancy club, they’re relying on social media to maintain their levels of clout. Some are being creative and holding virtual concerts for their thousands of fans. Some are doing Q&A sessions. Some are sort of just sitting there.
It’s all good fun.
Instagram set a new record for the most viewed live session, with Tory Lanez hitting 310,000 concurrent viewers with a little help from Drake. This smashed Taylor Swift’s previous record of 150,000. Whilst Taylor’s was probably more wholesome, it certainly didn’t have the stars that Tory managed to accrue for his ‘Quarantine Radio’ show. Tory had someone for everyone’s taste.
You want the classics? DMX. Timbaland. Alicia Keys. The Game. T Pain.
Fancy something more recent? Drake. The Weeknd. Young Thug. 21 Savage. Trippie Redd.
As I’m writing this phenomenal blog, Tory is still live, entertaining his almost 200,000 viewers with the help of other artists, the self-proclaimed ‘official twerk competition’ and his small socially distanced crew of hypemen constantly screaming ‘quarantine’. God forbid, f he ever decides to quit music, at least he’ll certainly have a future in radio.
Fellow rapper Boosie has also made headlines with his Live sessions. However, he went for a more risqué set of streams, which earnt him multiple warnings from Instagram. I’m not linking it, I’ll leave that adventure up to you.
Charli XCX has had a full range of guests in recent streams. From taking a psychopath test with Rina Sawayama to doing an art class with Clairo all from different parts of the world.
The lockdown streams have allowed creators to do small intimate shows, which can have audiences bigger than any arena could handle and have been used to test new material, practice for now-postponed tours or connect with others to relieve themselves of the strenuous work of staying inside and socially isolating.
Christine of Christine and the Queens fame has been performing live every day for a few weeks now, ever since France went into complete lockdown. Her phenomenal performances of songs from her new EP as well as covers of the likes of Steve Lacy and The Weeknd have kept fans entertained and sane. The energy she brings with her erratic dancing and props (i.e. a bicycle with a shopping cart in the front filming her) does well to cure the quarantine blues, even if its short-lived.
So if there’s one thing we’ve all learnt from this awful lockdown experience is that we are all in the same boat of boredom. This quarantime in quarantine is going to last for many more weeks, if not months, so be prepared for more questionable content on your social media timelines.
Here are some of the other best performances from the past few weeks:
Christine and the Queens complete with a tricycle.
The Japanese House who hosted a charity stream for The Outside Project.
Both Bastille and Miguel for Global Citizen and the World Health Organisation.
Swae Lee who hosted the first live concert, with a DJ, guest appearances and a stage invader.
John Legend with special guest Chrissy Teigen.
Diplo of all people doing an in-depth Q&A with a professor from MIT about the spread of Covid-19, followed by a sit-down set with Marcus Mumford. What an interesting character.
