/ 18 November 2022

On the difficult pandemic road

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Pandemic problems: South African outfit The Brother Moves On’s tour of Europe earlier this year was marred by cancellations. Photo: Lisanne Lentink

International artists have been forced to cancel their tours in recent months. The reasons have varied from illness related to long Covid, to limitations imposed by the pandemic on the touring musician’s life. 

Santigold, the American singer and songwriter whose experimental approach has influenced the likes of Rihanna, released a statement in September cancelling her Holified tour, shortly after her fourth album Spirituals was issued.

“I am sad because it breaks my heart to disappoint those of you who consistently come out to show love and support me for what I do,” she began. She went on to cite mental, spiritual and economic conditions as factors in her decision, and cited the rush to return to “normality” after the pandemic as a concern. 

Among the economic factors, she listed high fuel, flight and hotel prices, as well as “positive test results”, which had forced a halt in schedules, often with unfavourable financial outcomes.

“It feels like I’ve been hanging on, trying to make it to the ever-distant finish line, but my vehicle’s been falling apart the whole time — the bumper fell off, the wheels one at a time, the steering wheel and, finally, the whole bottom fell out. And here I am thinking, ‘Should I just hold the doors up and run?’” she wrote. 

The missive contains sentiments that have been echoed before and since by musicians as wide-ranging as recent Mercury Prize winner Little Simz as well as mainstream acts, such as Disclosure, Arlo Parks, and even Justin Bieber. It is a state of affairs that has left many a musician in a tough grey area — choosing between prioritising their well-being and showing up for the people who keep supporting them, regardless. 

US singer Santigold was forced to cancel her tour recently. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Back at the ranch

In Mzansi, the economic factors Santigold listed have been compounded by long waiting times to secure appointments for visa interviews. These delays, which can stretch out as long as two months, have a direct impact on ticket sales. 

Andrew Curnow, of the left-field independent label Mushroom Hour, shared his experience while managing the Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O on their European excursion, which included stops at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival as well as the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Netherlands. 

“From a day-to-day interacting with humans perspective, a lot of the restrictions have been removed around Covid. So, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be in that regard. A lot of the countries didn’t require us to do much; we could move around quite freely, we just had to all have vaccine certificates,” he says.

“From a financial perspective, not only flying from South Africa to Europe, but flying within [European countries], we used to be able to get cheap plane flights, or cheap train rides, and those days are over now. 

“Not only are the flights really expensive but the airports are a mess right now, there are huge queues, a lot of flights are overbooked, and it also just balloons the cost.”

Curnow says they resorted to renting a van and booking gigs in proximate countries, to save money. They eventually had to settle for the two dates since many European festivals were prioritising acts they’d booked during the two previous years when we couldn’t travel.

I accompanied The Brother Moves On and Bokani Dyer on what little remained of their European tour when this year began. All the venues and festivals that had booked them had cancelled, save the Paris Sons d’hiver festival, where both acts played to a full house. 

The cancellations came on the heels of Europe’s decision to put South Africa on a red list in December, following the emergence of the Omicron variant. That ban remained in place even after Belgium had been identified as the original source of the variant. 

What emerged, from the time we checked in at OR Tambo (a process that had its own delays) to when we landed at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, was that there was little coordination between authorities. 

“No one knows what to do,” said The Brother Moves On’s Siya Mthembu. He has been back and forth across Europe over the past year and was one of the artists selected for The South African Jazz Songbook, a Marcus Wyatt-conducted ensemble at the Royal Albert Hall in London. 

We talk over Google Hangouts a day after they flew out to Berlin in Germany and after a three-city South African tour that culminated in a triumphant showcase at the Local Grill in Parktown North, Joburg, on the same Friday, 28 October, their new album $/He Who Feeds You… Owns You got released.

“I had to present the tour to my mom, who was then prepared to give me R15 000. That’s the only way this tour was possible,” he says. While they barely broke even on the Cape Town dates, the band did make a profit from Durban and Joburg. 

“It’s heavy man, I had to have that conversation with my kid before I left, about why I had to go. And it’s not even a made-up thing. I had to go because I need to pay her school fees. I told her the whole situation.” 

It’s capitalism’s fault

The global connectedness of issues suggests there are greater powers at play, ones beyond what any one set of people, regardless of how organised they are, can control.

“We’re all hustling. We all make it look nice but it’s broken. It’s not just a music thing, capitalism’s broken. The heyday of acting like we could ignore it are gone. People can’t afford to go to clubs and pay 350 at the door. Yet we’re still charging 350 at the door because we can’t afford to charge 150,” says Mthembu.

Curnow observes that some of the performance venues which were around before the pandemic are no longer functional. This trend continues, as shown by the closure last month of The Mangrove in Braamfontein, Joburg, a restaurant which had become somewhat of a hub for live music on a weekly basis.

“There are different scenes in South Africa. Someone like Msaki or Robot Boii, it’s different for them because the fees they’re getting paid to perform — because they’re mainstream artists — are really big. So, touring for them is sustainable still. 

“But I think for musicians who are more in the alternative or jazz worlds, it was already difficult before Covid. We still don’t have enough of an ecosystem and enough venues. It’s become even more unsustainable now; there are fewer venues and it’s more expensive to travel. I don’t want to be too bleak about it but it’s becoming precarious.”

The point about the precariousness of artistic life always felt lacking, like there are more ways to examine the issue, and deeper questions to ask. An audience member during a Q&A session at a recent event put an end to my misery when he said the black artist’s life will remain under threat as long as black people are under threat. 

It’s a pessimistic view, but true. All struggle is connected and we can no longer afford to separate issues — fixing one thing requires that everything else be fixed. This is what the post-Covid moment is revealing to us.

Touring is still sustainable for mainstream local artists such as Msaki

Not all doom is gloomy

Mthembu reveals he’s in transition mode and looking to study towards his master’s degree. He also acknowledges he doesn’t have the privilege to make that choice and not consider the other members of The Brother Moves On. 

“Until our generation realises we’re the elders, I’m very bleak about [the future of live music]. The kids have their eyes in the sky; they don’t realise you have to get your hands dirty in this situation. They have this fantasy relation to this thing,” he cautions.

“I’ll take the knocks but I also keep realising I can’t keep talking myself down off the ledge. And I need to change things here, I need to change the places we go. But it’s all in action. 

“This [touring life] was not possible five years ago — my whole band is here to play shows, get paid properly and already start booking tours [for next year]. If we didn’t take this chance, we’d be at home.”