While festivals are still canceled in Europe due to the corona pandemic or small events are cautiously trying to bring normality back to the music business, the bear is pounding in New York: The city has started a series of concerts this week. With “NYC Homecoming Week” she wants to reward her citizens and herself for the fact that everyone has overcome the corona crisis together. New York was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, with over 30,000 dead – pictures of refrigerated trucks that removed the bodies went around the world.
Open air festivals have been taking place in five New York boroughs since last Monday, culminating this Saturday (August 21, 2021) with the “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert”. Since Monday, greats from the hip-hop and R&B scene have been on stage in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, including KRS-One, Raekwon, Big Daddy Kane and funk veteran George Clinton.
KRS-One, one of the headliners of “NYC Homecoming Week”
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NYC is back!
The series is intended as a “New York City is back” message to the world, with some of the city’s most beloved icons performing – and admission is free. 60,000 visitors are expected on the “Great Lawn”, the large meadow in the middle of the park. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the concert as a “rebirth” and “big moment for the city” and promised on Twitter that “this event will be one of the greatest Central Park concerts in history”.
Star producer Clive Davis is in charge of the planning. He was President of Columbia Records in the 1970s and is considered the discoverer of numerous world-famous musicians, including Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Patti Smith and Janis Joplin.
Bruce Springsteen and other veterans
And so it is probably no coincidence that some of Clive Davis’ pupils will cavort on the Central Park stage: In addition to Elvis Costello, Paul Simon, Carlos Santana, Earth and Wind & Fire, Jennifer Hudson, Barry Manilow and many other veterans rock and pop music will feature Patti Smith and Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen, as well as Andrea Bocelli, the New York Philharmonic and talk show star Jimmy Fallon.
With this line-up the question arises: Where are the young artists? The New York city magazine “Gothamist” criticizes the compilation, which is also male-dominated, with the words: “The cast is an affront to the young people of the city who have sacrificed the best years of their lives for the common good, only to To be invited to a show where there are more aging soft rock luminaries than real contemporary artists. Enjoy your concert, the young people will be in a different park. “
60,000 people are to celebrate on Saturday on the famous “Great Lawn”
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Access only with vaccination certificate
If you want to be there live, you have to be vaccinated. However, one vaccine dose is enough for the organizers. There is no obligation to wear a mask on the concert site, and social distancing does not take place. For many, a risky pleasure in the middle of the next wave with the delta variant of the coronavirus.
Danielle Ompad is an epidemiologist at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. She would not attend a concert like this during these weeks. “There are all kinds of liquids flying around,” she said in the lifestyle magazine “Curbed” and added: “People are sweaty. They scream. If one of my friends told me that he was in the middle of a mosh pit, he would I say: ‘We’ll see you again in two weeks when you’ve been tested,’ “said the scientist.
There will probably not be such pictures at the concert in Central Park
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Ein Superspreader-Event?
Even if a mosh pit is not to be expected with the aged line-up, critics of the “We love NYC” concert fear that this will be a super-spreading event. There is no criticism from the artists – although the main act Bruce Springsteen takes great pains to ensure that everyone at his concerts is vaccinated with a US-approved vaccine and that all safety measures are observed.
According to experts in infectious diseases, the safety of major events depends on the precautionary measures taken – and the COVID measures are simply too lax for the upcoming concert in Central Park, even if the end of the pandemic is celebrated here this weekend . Hopefully, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was not happy too soon.
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