Turnstile at the Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles

By Jordan Edwards

Turnstile were nominated for three Grammy Awards earlier this month, capping an unlikely two-year rise to become one of America’s biggest bands. But was it really out of nowhere?

Sure, they don’t have a hit radio single. "HOLIDAY" doesn't appear in a crucial Netflix series scene (it should). But a popular song on social media or streaming platforms doesn’t always translate to a building a giant fanbase. Louis Theroux isn’t selling out The Shrine.

Instead of charting how the Baltimore band got to this point, let’s talk about why they became so popular.

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Grant Spanier/Courtesy of the Artist

Name a musician,producer, or DJ with a full band that can fill Avant Gardner’s Kings Hall on a rainy Sunday night in Brooklyn.

The answer is Bonobo.

Bonobo (aka Simon Green) is currently on the North American leg of his Fragments tour. The five-time GRAMMY-nominee is on the road with his full band – yes, including trumpets, drums, vocals, guitars, and keys.

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Music Features

New York Entertainment Venues Can Open at 1/3 Capacity in April

Governor Cuomo announced that indoor venues can open to 33 percent, with a 100-person maximum.

On April 2, concert venues and other performance spaces in the state of New York will be able to open at limited capacity.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday at a conference in Albany that arts, entertainment, and events venues could reopen April 2 at 33 percent capacity, with an indoor limit of 100 people and outdoor limit of 200 people. While live music fans might rejoice in this new, these restrictions may not be enough to keep business afloat for many well-known venues across New York City.

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Live music was one of the first cultural casualties of COVID back in early 2020.

Before the United States was a hotbed for anti-mask, anti-lockdown disinformation — and the surge of cases and deaths that have come along with that — before we had registered any notable outbreak at all, concerts and music festivals were already being canceled. And with the slow pace of vaccine rollout, a date for their return is still a long way off.

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Music Features

Dr. Fauci Says Live Music Could Return This Fall

"By the time we get to the early to mid-fall, you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience," Dr. Fauci said.

Aside from those who crowded a fated Chainsmokers concert in the Hamptons last summer, music fans in the United States are going on a year without a typical live music experience.

Though livestreams and drive-ins have been able to hold most of us over in the meantime, social distancing regulations have taken a big emotional toll on concert goers — not to mention the financial burdens it's ravaged on artists as well as independent venues, which are closing by the numbers nationwide. Things might be looking up by the end of 2021, though.

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Music Features

See Paul Mescal of "Normal People" Alongside Dermot Kennedy in Virtual Live Concert Tonight

Don't miss the one-off event streamed from the National History Museum in London.

via Natural History Museum

With new coronavirus infections still rampant across the world, it's beginning to feel like public gatherings will be confined to the past for the foreseeable future.

One of the industries hardest hit by the global pandemic is undoubtedly the music industry, which relied on ticket sales from live events for much of its revenue. The industry has been scrambling to fill the void left behind by live music, and while some companies like BandCamp have undertaken efforts to help struggling music professionals, one of the most widespread responses to the pandemic has been live-streamed performances.

While many of these are on individual artists' Instagram accounts, some are actually holding ticketed, one-off events. Perhaps unsurprisingly, with little to do but sit at home and watch TV, people are responding positively to these virtual concerts, and as a result the concerts are getting more and more creative. As The Guardian notes, "Some venues are running and have already scheduled ticketed concerts to be streamed online."

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