DETROIT — It's the middle of the summer concert season, and Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill is back on the road for what was supposed to be a celebration of the return of live music.
The party is being dampened, however, as the delta variant wreaks havoc on an industry that was just starting to recover from the disastrous effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
"I feel like we're about to be out walking around with landmines all around us," he says, "and to get out without stepping on one, that's going to be a miracle."
His statement is indicative of a live touring business that is trying to make the most out of what's becoming a bummer summer.
After swinging open its proverbial doors to fans in June, the concert industry is rethinking its approach as the delta variant surges across the country. As the numbers worsen, some artists and venues are tightening the restrictions that were dropped perhaps too early as artists and fans started filing back into venues, and are now requiring fans to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative COVID test before gaining entry into their shows.
That's the case at this week's Dave Chappelle shows at the Fillmore Detroit. The comic kicked off a run of seven shows at the venue with back-to-back concerts Tuesday, and fans are required to take a rapid COVID-19 test before gaining entry into the venue.
Concert promoter Live Nation announced last week it will allow individual artists to mandate whether concertgoers will need to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to be admitted into their shows.
There were no mask mandates or vaccine requirements at Comerica Park at Sunday's Guns N' Roses concert, which drew an estimated 20,000 hard-rocking fans to the Detroit Tigers' home, or at Tuesday's Hella Mega tour stop, featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and a crowd of around 32,000 fans.
Alondra Perez of Ann Arbor bought tickets to Tuesday's show two years ago — the concert was rescheduled from summer 2020 — and she came prepared with a mask. She said she's been wearing masks, even after getting vaccinated; in Michigan; 64.2% of residents 16 and over have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"I'm a little nervous, but doing the most I can to protect myself, which is to wear a mask," said Perez, 22. "Even if it's outdoors, I would much rather be safe than sorry."
Others shunned masks for the concert, including Jordan Gerred of Riverdale, who was there with her son, Hudson.
"We're not going to (wear masks) because it's an outside venue," said Gerred, 31. "So I feel a little bit safer for sure.
"I feel just as safe here as I do at work, honestly," she said. "At work, I'm super close to people, within 6 feet of people all the time. So I feel like even though there's more people here, we can keep ourselves a little bit more protected here just being away from everybody."
The pair of shows were the first downtown stadium concerts held since Garth Brooks played for a crowd of 70,000 fans at Ford Field in February 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 shut down the live touring industry for more than a year.
Garth Brooks is now back on the road, but is planning to reassess his tour in the wake of the latest health crisis and has put tickets to his upcoming shows on hold.
Meanwhile, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which was set to be held in October, over the weekend canceled its 2021 event, citing the rise of COVID-19 cases in Louisiana, and touring artists including Michael Buble, Stevie Nicks, Counting Crows, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Limp Bizkit and Detroit-based indie-pop duo JR JR have all shelved individual shows or entire tours either due to positive COVID cases or lingering public health concerns. Last week, Fall Out Boy pulled out of a pair of Hella Mega shows when an unnamed member of the band's inner circle tested positive for COVID.
"In short, the system is still very flawed," Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst tells Billboard. "Even if the performers, crews, staff and promoters do their best to ensure safety on and behind the stage, that doesn't ensure the safety of the audience as a whole. We are all in this together, and we all — individually and as a whole — have to make our best efforts to be as responsible and proactive as possible moving forward to combat and stop spreading COVID."
At DTE Energy Music Theatre, which opened its season last month and over the weekend hosted country singer Chris Stapleton for a pair of sold-out shows, numbering 15,000 fans each, no mask rules or vaccination requirements are in place.
Officials at 313Presents, which handles concerts at DTE as well as at Comerica Park, Little Caesars Arena, Meadow Brook Amphitheatre, Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre and the Fox Theatre, declined comment for this story, but reps did provide a statement saying, "the safety of guests, colleagues and artists is a top priority as concerts and events have returned to full capacity. 313 Presents continues to work closely with state and local health officials while following guidelines and protocols set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are continuing to monitor protocols and guidelines as they evolve and we will communicate updates or changes to ticket holders via email, 313presents.com and our social channels."
Some venues are taking matters into their own hands. Detroit's Marble Bar, Ferndale's Magic Bag and Small's in Hamtramck are all requiring guests to be vaccinated or to provide proof of a negative COVID test in order to enter.
A handful of performers are following suit. Indie rock outfit Japanese Breakfast, which performed at Saint Andrew's Hall last week, was one of the first artists to require proof of vaccination for attendance at its concerts, and singer-songwriter Jason Isbell is doing the same on his upcoming tour. If the venue won't allow it, he won't play the show, and he backed up his words by canceling his concert Tuesday night in Houston when the venue refused to comply with his policy.
"I'm all for freedom, but I think if you're dead, you don't have any freedoms at all. So it's probably important to stay alive before you start questioning your liberty," Isbell said Monday on MSNBC. "It's life and then it's liberty and then it's the pursuit of happiness. Those are in order of priority."
JR JR's Joshua Epstein said the group's four-date 10th anniversary tour — which was to include a Friday stop at Ferndale's Magic Bag, as well as concerts in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. — was meant to be a commemoration of the band's legacy and the luxury of being able to perform live again, but with recent news the band wasn't much in the mood for celebrating.
"Ultimately we were hearing from a lot of hesitant fans worried about coming," Epstein says by email. "Since it was only four shows and the unbridled joy we hoped to impart seemed like it was less of a certainty, we decided not to ask people to risk anything by coming to see us indoors."
When the group announced the tour, the outlook for live concerts was sunnier, but the forecast has gotten progressively worse over the course of the summer.
"I think in late May we would've felt totally comfortable performing," Epstein says. "It's going to be fluid for a while, but it's not permanent by any means."
Last month's Faster Horses festival at Michigan International Speedway was the state's largest concert gathering since restrictions on capacity limitations for outdoor gatherings were lifted on July 1. The three-day country music fest drew an estimated 40,000 fans, and after an outbreak was traced back to the event, Michigan health department officials encouraged concertgoers who attended the fest to get tested for COVID-19. A reported 96 cases of COVID have been traced back to the festival.
Dr. Preeti Malani, chief health officer at the University of Michigan, said a cluster outbreak at Faster Horses indicates people in rural areas need to get vaccinated in order to continue attending events.
"Part of it is smaller places, communities where there are poor vaccination rates, need to be aware of the potential outbreak risks ... It's not the festival itself," she said. "If you're outside, things are very safe, vaccinated or not. Packing lots of people inside, especially if there's a difference in vaccination status or there are young kids there, the risk is less clear. For outdoor festivals, it's more about what happens after the festivals."
There is a clear breakthrough risk for people who are fully vaccinated to contract the delta variant, officials say. There are 233 known cases of the variant in Michigan, which have doubled over the last four weeks. There are an additional 14,000 other known cases of other variants in the state and case totals have been rising for the last five weeks.
But we can't quantify the delta variant yet, Malani said, adding vaccination is preventing major health risks.
It's unknown if fully vaccinated residents can transmit the variant to others, which could impact mandates.
"As the pandemic changes, recommendations have to change, and it's frustrating to people because there's confusion," Malani said.
No proof of vaccination or COVID-testing was required of Faster Horses attendees, unlike Lollapalooza, which unfolded July 29-Aug. 1 in Chicago and hosted roughly 100,000 fans a day. Officials reported 90% of fans showed proof of vaccination at the site's gates, but COVID cases coming out of the fest will be difficult to trace, officials say, because the fest draws so many out-of-towners.
Next month's Bonnaroo and Milwaukee Summerfest events are following Lolla's lead, and reps for both on Tuesday announced this year's shows will require attendees to either be vaccinated or provide a negative COVID test for entry.
Summer's concert concerns bleed into fall, where indoor arena shows take over as the weather turns and outdoor amphitheaters close shop for the season. Alan Jackson will perform Little Caesars Arena's first concert back on Sept. 17, while Harry Styles, Blake Shelton and J. Cole all have shows lined up at the venue in the following weeks.
For Kings of Leon's Followill, he says he's a "ball of nerves" as his band is hitting the road for the first time since 2019; Kings of Leon launched its summer tour last week in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The fear of having to cancel individual concerts or writing off an entire leg of a tour will "always" be around now, he says. The band was set to go out in the road in 2020 when the industry went dark.
"It was never a fear two years ago, no one knew this was even possible," says the singer, whose band plays DTE Energy Music Theatre on Sunday. "But there's also that thought of, let's go enjoy this, because if the tour would end up stopping in the middle of it, I want to make we sure enjoyed every second we had out there. But there's not really anything we can do besides just be smart and not get ourselves in any situations where we have to unfortunately cancel the tour.
"Everyone's been cooped up," he says, "we're just trying to create an atmosphere where people enjoy themselves. Hopefully everyone stays safe and we get to do it and don't have to come back home in the middle of it."
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Staff writers Sarah Rahal and Hani Albarghouthi contributed to this report.
