Even as Bengaluru began reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic scare and shutting down activities, public gatherings, etc., over the last few days, a few events did take place without a hitch. British rock band Alexis Kings was in the city as part of its maiden India tour, performed and has already left for its next destination, Mumbai.
The band, says lead vocalist Brendan Aherne, has no intention of calling off its tour, even though every other artiste worth his/her salt is doing just that. The reason? “We might be safer here in India, than in the UK. They have more number of cases than India and the level of panic there has definitely dampened the spirit of many people from attending music shows. Taking precautions seriously should have been more than enough, but completely stopping one’s way around life is ridiculous. If quarantine measures were better implemented and awareness surrounding the breakout heightened, we’d be a lot better off without the hysteria. People are also falling sick because of anxiety on whether they will contract the virus or not,” he says.
Meanwhile, Sufi artiste Mir Mukhtiyar Ali’s show in Bengaluru went low profile, but didn’t get cancelled. “Given growing concerns over coronavirus, a sizeable number of people did cancel their tickets, but we managed to have a good audience for the show. Mukhtiyar had performed in Canada and Rajasthan before coming for the Bengaluru concert. Of course, precautionary measures were in place, and we even had members of the audience wearing masks and keeping a distance from each other inside the auditorium, it was good to see that music lovers in Bengaluru were not panicking as such,” says Menaka Rodriguez, from India Foundation for the Arts that organised the show.
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