Van Morrison slammed the concept of socially distanced shows as “pseudo-science,” and said only he and one other person were fighting to restart the live-music industry.

As tentative moves were underway to bring concerts back amid the coronavirus pandemic, Morrison agreed to perform three limited-audience concerts in the U.K. over the coming weeks. But he's not happy about it.

“This is not a sign of compliance or acceptance of the current state of affairs,” he wrote on his website. “This is to get my band up and running and out of the doldrums. This is also not the answer going forward. We need to be playing to full-capacity audiences going forward.”

Morrison said he's calling "on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up. [Composer] Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and myself appear to be the only people in the music business trying to get it back up and running again. Come forward.”

Noting that it wasn’t “economically viable to do socially distanced gigs,” Morrison announced plans to publish a list of names of those who supported his position. “If you would like your name included, contact us,” he concluded.

Last week, German scientists staged a concert that looked like those that took place before the pandemic. They hope that by analyzing how the audience interacted, they might gather information on how to control the spread of the virus at live events.

 

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