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The drive-in isn’t just for movies anymore.
It’s also now for live music. And Bay Area music fans can get their first taste of the new trend this weekend, June 12-13, in Pleasanton.
Promoters have begun staging “drive-in concerts” in some parts of the country to give fans a dose of live music in a time when COVID-19 has necessitated the shutdown of most concert venues.
Already, Michael W. Smith and Keith Urban are among the big-name acts to have performed drive-in concerts in the Nashville area, while TobyMac and the Newsboys United are both launching multi-date tours at drive-in theaters in the South this summer. There’s also a drive-in concert series on tap in Southern California, which is set to kick off with Los Lobos and Mariachi El Bronx on the Fourth of July in Silverado.
In Pleasanton, a trio of popular Bay Area tribute acts — Journey Revisited, Hot for Teacher (Van Halen) and Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers (ZZ Top) — are set to perform pop-up drive-in concerts in a parking lot of the Alameda County Fairgrounds at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 12-13. Tickets are $100 per vehicle. There will be be food trucks and even a drive-up bar available as you enter.
The music will be played over a regular concert sound system, not piped into your car radio.
Tickets and more information are at alamedacountyfair.com. The site’s concert FAQ section also spells out coronavirus-safety requirements: concert-goers can’t leave their cars unless it’s to use a restroom; masks must be worn if you have your windows open; you must take all your trash home with you, etc.
Note that the concerts are taking place at the same time as a “pop-up” drive-in movie, also at the Pleasanton fairgrounds. The concerts are to take place in a parking lot off Gate 12 on Valley Avenue, whereas the movies take place in a carnival lot close to the opposite side of the fairgrounds.
It’s not hard to see why the drive-in trend is spreading to music. Besides giving you something to do outside the house — the setting allows music lovers to take in a live performance from their own cars. It offers the kind of safe social-distancing that would be difficult to replicate in a theater or concert hall. It’s the same reason why drive-in movie theaters were able to reopen long before people started talking about bringing back indoor cinemas.
Will national headliners soon be playing drive-in shows in the Bay Area? It’s certainly possible, since concert promoter Live Nation, which operates Shoreline Amphitheatre, Concord Pavilion and other local venues, is actively looking for ways to host concerts in alternative settings.
“I’m not ready to say tomorrow or the next day, but we would love to get out there in the next month or two with some active content,” Thomas See, Live Nation’s venues president for U.S. concerts, told Variety.
Bay Area Live Nation officials could not be reached for comment.
Besides the Alameda County Fairgrounds, one source of drive-in concert locations could come from West Wind Drive-Ins, which runs theaters in San Jose, Concord and Sacramento. Officials at West Wind could not be reached for comment.
Drive-in shows in other locations have met with favorable reports. Keith Urban’s one-off took place at a traditional drive-in — the Stardust in Watertown, Tennessee — while the TobyMac and Newsboys United tours are also scheduled for these bastions of classic car culture and ’50s-era nostalgia.
“A few Saturday nights every summer my family and I head to a local drive-in movie theater,” TobyMac said in a statement, according to The Christian Post. “We always love it. When we started discussing live shows in this quarantine season the idea of playing drive-ins came up. I said, ‘Let’s go.’ It feels like summer, safe for everybody, and we all get to enjoy live music again.”
Michael W. Smith performed his drive-in show at the Williamson County Ag Expo Park in Franklin, Tennessee. Los Lobos and Mariachi El Bronx are set to play in Oak Canyon Park in Silverado, California.
That seems like the approach most concert promoters will take moving forward, in part because there are far more parks and large spaces available in the U.S. than there are drive-in theaters (and many drive-in theaters are already busy showing movies). And promoters already have access to huge parking lots at the venues they run.
“I oversee over 40 large outdoor amphitheaters where we would traditionally do 30-40 shows a year that have parking lots and restrooms all set up, and if we can find a way within each jurisdiction to get the artists and the fans to connect together, that’s the ultimate goal,” Live Nation’s See told Variety.
The drive-in concert trend didn’t start in the U.S., but rather caught on in places like the Czech Republic and Denmark before crossing over the Atlantic Ocean. The first major artist to embrace the concept in the U.S. was Urban, who performed a free, invite-only show for Vanderbilt University medical personnel on May 14.
And the country star sounded thrilled to be doing something that wasn’t a livestream concert.
“I’m grateful that we have the technology to do ‘at home’ concerts,” Urban told Variety, “but come on — without the audience, it’s just one looooong soundcheck.”
“The only real challenge for me was [the absence of] the energy from a mosh pit. But the car horns, the flashing headlights — that was crazy cool.”
A little over two weeks later, Smith was performing another big drive-in show, singing his smash cover of “Waymaker” and other hit songs as well as encouraging the fans occupying the estimated 1,000 vehicles in attendance.
“If you don’t have enough faith, all of us on this stage have lots of faith for you,” Smith told the audience, according to The Tennessean. “Whatever trial, whatever COVID brought your way, God is bigger than that.”
In general, tickets for these performances are sold by the carload. The tickets for the TobyMac and Newsboys United shows, for example, run $75-$175 per car, with up to six people allowed per vehicle.
My interview with @tobymac from a few years back. He's hitting the road on a concert tour of drive-in movie theaters. https://t.co/Iitgeraa03
— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) June 10, 2020
. @michaelwsmith brings "extraordinary redemption story" 2 @POFATheatre @PalaceOfFineArt @gstmonterey @TheUptownNapa @AMTShows @amarilloglobe @hoffmantown @FPACSLO @CheyCivicCenter @RococoTheatre @longcenter @thebrowntheatre @thegrandmacon @fbcindiantrail https://t.co/sx0rtlX4YO
— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) March 5, 2020
The wonderful @WestWindDriveIn theaters reopen in San Jose, Concord. https://t.co/lrJ1s0angO
— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) June 5, 2020
My @keithurban review from a few years back. He's one of the artists who have embraced the drive-in concert concept. https://t.co/L95YBgXNj8
— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) June 10, 2020
