Musicians facing uncertainty of COVID-19 pandemic trying to keep perspective

With concerts cancelled in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and no clear idea when touring can resume, some P.E.I. musicians are doing their best to take a wider view of their situation.

Rachel Beck has just finished an east coast tour and was supposed to fly to the west coast in a week to continue her tour there. Instead, she will remain cozied up at home with her three children.

"There's definitely a lot of uncertainty," said Beck.

And that uncertainty is not just for her. Months ago, Beck hired three other musicians to go on the tour with her.

"It ripples through the whole industry, and of course will impact myself personally," she said.

"But my first thought was of them, because if I'm not able to go out and play the shows and I'm not getting paid anything I don't have anything to pay them, and they've been holding these dates for me."

Her own personal investment in the tour is significant. There are thousands of dollars tied up in flight credits. A pile of merchandise, some of it specially designed for this tour, is now stacked up in her dining room.

But she does not have any second thoughts about the need to cancel the tour.

"Money really doesn't matter if people don't have their health and if we're not all helping each other to stay well and protect our vulnerable populations and our health care system, and so that that's got to be top priority," said Beck.

"We just hope that things will be able to reschedule and that we can move forward with all of this."

The tour was to promote her new album Stronger Than You Know, which she said has now become an ironic title given the current circumstances.

Staying in touch with sanity, funny bone

Beck said she knows musicians who have been live streaming concerts from their homes, but she said with three kids running around any show she did would be more like a comedy hour than a concert.

Maxine MacLennan, a member of the group Treble with Girls, took her work-from-home ethic one step further, and wrote a song in honour of the pandemic.

"Everything is in such a state of flux and fear," said MacLennan.

"There's some crazy stuff going on with people hoarding. Parts of it made me laugh and parts of it made me a little anxious and scared. Music has always calmed me down at different parts of my life."

So she channeled her fear, despite all her awareness of the seriousness of the pandemic, into a comic song: Quarantine Blues.

"We need to stay in touch with our sanity and humanity and funny bone," said MacLennan.

The song deals with how to deal with being stuck in a house together, trying to keep your spirits up and, yes, hoarding toilet paper.

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