How One Hardcore Band DIY-ed a Concert for 13,000 Fans
Last Friday night, Pittsburgh hardcore band Code Orange played a record release show for their new album, Underneath, to more than 13,000 adoring fans, but an entirely empty room. That’s because—due to quick thinking and strategizing—the group was able to pivot their concert to a virtual-only experience in the face of ongoing coronavirus concerns.
Due to safety precautions and strict crackdowns on large social gatherings, stemming from the spread (and containment efforts) of COVID-19, Code Orange’s long-planned release show had to be canceled. With only a week to pivot, the band came up with a viable solution: Play the show, but in an empty venue, and broadcast it on the massively popular global streaming platform Twitch.
“[At first], it felt like all of the work we had been doing just went out the window,” Code Orange singer Jami Morgan says over the phone a few days after the show. “[But] it ended up being seen by a lot more people than it would have.”
In fact, more than double the venue’s original capacity tuned in to watch Code Orange’s show, which is one of many ways musicians are turning to new digital outlets post-coronavirus to connect to fans in a world in which social connection is currently strongly discouraged. Some acts are doing “URL” tours, offering different concert experiences nightly on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and more. Others still are encouraging group songwriting and production to continue, albeit via Skype and FaceTime.
Earlier this week, we caught up with Morgan to talk about Code Orange’s scramble to put on a show, the value of DIY in an age of isolation, and how musicians can stay connected to their fanbase when we need to distance ourselves.
GQ: How did the Twitch show come together so quickly?
Jami Morgan: We had been working on this record for the past two years, and this specific show for the past six months, and we were gearing up for our tour. The show we were going to play was going to be one of our biggest shows ever—and in our hometown of Pittsburgh. We’ve been playing together since we were 15 and have been making music here since then, so it really meant a lot to us. We had invested a ton into putting on the best production that we possibly could. About a week before the show, everything started happening.
We just started calling people that we knew from our community, the first one being Sunny Singh from the long-running video hardcore-music documentation project Hate5six. He’s been documenting the hardcore scene for so long. He also brought along another video crew called Feet First Productions. There was this kid Sam that we had met who’s a little genius with production. We all just put our heads together and tried to figure out how to stream it. Our label, Roadrunner, has a really good relationship with Twitch, and they were super into it and got behind it. Everyone pitched in to help, and I think all of the work we had put into the visuals and everything else beforehand really helped just make the stream so special.
Did you guys find it a satisfying alternative, to be able to have some sort of show and audience regardless?
Yeah, absolutely. At first it really was hard to swallow. It felt like all the work that we had done kind of went out the window. Everything we do is very DIY, and we’re involved in almost every aspect of it. Our resources aren’t the biggest, so we had put a lot of effort into it, and we really wanted everyone to see it. When we kind of realized that it could be something really special, that helped soothe it over a bit for us. It ended up being seen by a lot more people than it would have normally too. Obviously, we want to get in front of people, but I think we were able to do something really unique and special and make history for the hardcore community and maybe just metal in general too.
Obviously, this wasn’t an ideal situation, but moving forward, would you consider doing experimentation like the Twitch show?
Yeah, totally, especially while this is going on. We’ve always done a lot of visual stuff, and Shade has been working on an animated movie for the past year and a half. We love to make visual work, but obviously we really want to get back out there and play live shows for our fans. If we can bring those other visuals that we make to our shows, it would be amazing.
This was a bit of a perfect storm for us: We had all the gear rented already, the venue, and we couldn’t really just give it back. We were basically just like, “Well, let’s figure something out here then and do it,” because we weren’t going to have another chance at this. Everything came together very fast. It would be hard to re-create that exact thing right now, but maybe other artists with more resources could.
In this immediate moment, when artists are having to cancel their shows, how do you think musicians can stay connected to their fans?
For us, it’s very beneficial to come from the hardcore scene, where you have to be very creative and have to learn how to be resourceful and do things ourselves. This isn’t the first empty venue we’ve played. [Laughs] It’s going to be all about creativity, I think. People will say, “Well, I don’t have those resources,” and yeah, I totally get that. You just have to get creative as possible with what you have. Like with us, we had all that stuff rented, but it was only for that day, and we had to figure out how to make it work in any way we could. People like Sunny, and people from our community all came out and made it happen. There were a lot of people with similar ideas coming together to make something happen.
Have you noticed any extra support from your fans considering the current circumstances?
Oh yeah, absolutely. This feels like the most love and support we’ve ever gotten—it’s not even close. We’ve always been a bit of a polarizing band in some ways. There’s just been so much love, though, it’s been really overwhelming and feels great. It’s really great that we can believe in what we do and we’re willing to just take that and drive it to the fullest extent.
Reba [Meyers, guitarist and vocalist] was the one who was calling all these people, all these production people, being on the phone for hours. She was making the merch, getting them up hours before our show so we could have them for the livestream. Joe [Goldman], our bassist, was getting orders ready to ship out. We really do everything ourselves, and I think that kind of work and effort that we do is really going to power us through this moment.
Nobody has an answer for this yet, but what do you think is going to happen once everything settles down? Are artists going to be able to restart their tours?
I don’t know, really. Some tours will have to get scrapped. Maybe some people will be able to restart them, but it’s pretty hard. I think it’s going to be a fresh slate for a lot of people. I mean, by the time you write this, we’ll have canceled our tour too [Editor’s note: yup]. I think all music and artists will persevere on the other side, though.
It’s been interesting to see a lot of people turn to art in tough times like this.
It’s hard to get that escape, but people need it. Either you’re talking about the virus or you’re watching some insane Trump press conference. It’s all just very crazy. But people need that escapism more than ever right now, though. You have to tune out a lot of noise right now and tune up that noise in your head that says “you’re able” and “you can carry through” right now.
Things like that can really help, and that's kind of what we got to do. We were able to make something that could make people happy and do it in a safe way. I said during the show that the people who run this world right now are showing how little they care about us right now. They only care once it really affects their bottom dollar. If they cared, they wouldn't have let this happen.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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Originally Appeared on GQ
