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 The couple, wearing fedora hats
and wide smiles, had driven five hours from
their home in southeast Indiana to visit their
favorite blues club, which had recently reopened
for live performances after a year of shutdown
due to COVID-19.
"It's so great to be back," said Pickens, 66,
taking a drag from a cigarette outside the venue
on a dancing break. "It makes me feel alive."
Inside the bar in the city's Lincoln Park
neighborhood, a diverse crowd filled long
tables, where they threw back cold beer and
baskets of fried food while bopping along to the
music.
At concert venues across the United States, from
Denver to Washington, D.C., similar scenes have
played out in recent weeks as cities lift
COVID-19 restrictions and newly vaccinated music
lovers return to their old haunts for the thrill
of live music in public company. It is one of
the unmistakable sights - and sounds - of
American life returning to normal, or closer to
it.
Venues large and small are seeing demand soar
for performers of all genres, who are scrambling
to fine-tune their acts after a year of
inaction.
"When we started playing again, it was an
out-of-body experience," said blues guitarist
Joanna Connor, gearing up for her show at
Kingston Mines one June evening. "It's
reaffirmed that I need to do this for my soul."
In interviews, concert lovers described the
invigorating experience of hearing live music in
a crowded room once again. It felt like the
antithesis of the homebound isolation they
endured over the past year, and for many, it
felt like an antidote.
In Alexandria, Virginia, a mostly middle-aged,
Black crowd of more than 200 people swayed their
arms in time with a wailing trombone at the
Birchmere Music Hall's tribute to Motown
concert. It was the first of many summer
concerts that Lynette Shingler and her husband
Earl planned to attend, now that they were
vaccinated against COVID-19.
"If you are a music fanatic, listening to it on
the radio is not the same," said Shingler, a
52-year-old federal employee in a floor-length
blue dress. "You’ve really got to be in the
atmosphere."
Across the river in Washington, D.C., a younger
crowd of thousands has packed the dance floor
night after night at Echostage, a nightclub that
reopened its doors on June 11.
Lit up by neon strobe lights and the glow of
thousands of iPhones in outstretched hands, the
room shook with bass vibrations as French DJ
David Guetta jumped up and down onstage.
Guetta is one of several top electric dance
music (EDM) headliners that Echostage has
welcomed over the last month. The 3,000-person
capacity venue started offering tickets for
their summer lineup in May, selling 20,000
tickets in just the first few days, far
outpacing their pre-pandemic sales rate, Vice
President of Operations Matt Cronin said.
"I attribute it to just an absolute hunger for
people to get out and see music again," he
added.
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 In Denver, New Age guitarist
Victor Towle has already played more than twice
as many gigs as he did in 2020 since local bars
restarted live entertainment in May.
Towle spent the last year recording a solo
instrumental album since he could not play live.
His return to the stage and to his typical
three-hour performances has felt abrupt but
"exhilarating," he said.
"I’m noticing that I’m out of shape, you know.
I’ve got to get my voice and my chops back,” he
said.
'HEE HAW HEAVEN'
In Decatur, Georgia, in late June, Danica Hart
stood onstage before dozens of people in Eddie's
Attic, a small venue for up-and-coming Country
and Americana bands, wearing a baseball cap and
jeans.
"Hello Decatur!" she cried out to the cheering
crowd. "Let's make some real noise!"
Hart, who leads the trio Chapel Hart, said the
group was accustomed to scraping by since they
got their start busking in New Orleans. But the
pandemic year had pushed them to their limits.
"At times we were lucky to have gas money," Hart
said. "Now we're back," she
said. "It feels like a rebirth. People are ready
to come out for real, live music. They've missed
this and we've missed the people... We're in hee
haw heaven."
Like many venues that were shuttered, Eddie's
Attic is still ramping up operations. It has
reopened with limited capacity, and the kitchen
remains closed. Still, co-owner Dave Mattingly
said it is a big improvement from the heartbreak
of watching dust accumulate on tables and chairs
for a year.
"To go from that to hearing this music, the
people stamping feet and clapping along, it's
like lightning striking," Mattingly said.
As Chapel Hart jammed out to their twangy
numbers with names like "Jesus and Alcohol,"
concertgoers reflected on what it was like to
miss live music for a year, and then experience
it again.
"It's like starving, slowly," 54-year-old Sherry
Mills, a local middle school music teacher, said
of her inability to see live bands.
"I feel liberated," said Barry Rosner, 76, a big
grin on his face and his arms stretched wide as
he stood just outside the venue.
Rosner, who said it was his first show in more
than a year, was lingering to catch a word with
the members of Chapel Hart. "I want to tell them
thank you and we're not afraid to go out
anymore."
(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago, Rich
McKay in Decatur, Georgia, Andy Hay in Taos, New
Mexico and Gabriella Borter in Washington;
Writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Paul
Thomasch and Lisa Shumaker)
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