In fits and starts, though.
Lockn’ was reduced to three weekends with one stage, no screens, and only a few bands, but the JRAD/Slip/Medeski+Martin (and Surprise Me Mr. Davis when Nathan Moore joined in with The Slip and Marco Benevento) shows were excellent even though the weather played havoc with the schedule. JRAD made up most of the missed performances on Friday and Saturday nights with daytime shows on Saturday and Sunday (including Pink Floyd and Allman Brothers sets) and finally got a full 3-hour show in on Sunday night. Ironically Sunday was supposed to be the stormiest day of the weekend but there was hardly any rain at all.
The Lockn’ folks graciously made it up to the JRAD attendees by allowing us to return for either the Goose weekend or the Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB) weekend for free. A long drive again but worth it to see Tedeschi Trucks (full band including the horn section), Marcus King, Gabe Dixon, and Jon Batiste; Lettuce had to cancel due to a positive COVID test. The TTB show on Saturday night was cut short by thunderstorms. The Sunday night show would also have been cut short but it started an hour earlier than on Saturday so they got the full show in about 15 minutes before the lightning and thunder and rain rolled in.
Bonnaroo was cancelled not due to COVID but due to rain from Hurricane Ida.
New Orleans Jazz Fest was cancelled due to COVID but it looks like some clubs shows will still take place.
SweetWater 420 Festival is going to try again next April after having cancelled for both 2020 and 2021. Many of the acts for 2020/2021 played the Peach Festival in Pennsylvania this summer but that was a bit too far for me to travel. Fortunately many of the bands are scheduled again for SW420 for next year, including Oysterhead, Trey Anastasio Band, JRAD, plus String Cheese Incident, Umphrey’s McGee, Spafford, moe., Goose, Oteil and Friends, Turkuaz/Jerry Harrison/Adrian Belew, etc.
Also really enjoyed the four-night online club performances by the Rocky Mountain Grateful Dead Revue in April, featuring the DSO “reunion” of Rob Eaton and John Kadlecik, plus Skip Vangelas, Rob Barraco, Jay Lane, and Jake Wolf. About 90 songs over the four nights. Just saw that the same lineup is performing again over Halloween weekend with Melvin Seals joining in, but no streaming option as of mid-October.
I support COVID vaccines and masks if you want (hey, I don’t want to catch COVID even in the likely event that I would recover), and I understand the requirements for COVID vaccinations or negative tests for indoor shows but I’m not sure why they are necessary for outdoor shows. Especially since other recent large outdoor events (for example, Lollapalooza, college and pro football, etc.) have not resulted in COVID spikes. I understand those requirements for the bands and the crews and staff but they don’t really come into close contact with most of the attendees. Ah, well, better safe than sorry, I guess.
And there was a Phish Live Bait Vol. 17 in July. Plus a new Leo Kottke/Mike Gordon album.