Courtney Barnett, Lucius, Sharon Van Etten, The War on Drugs, Kevin Morby & More Playing Oxfam Instagram Live Benefit
A modern-day Live Aid is coming to Instagram feeds everywhere later today. Courtney Barnett, and Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are hosting Live From Our Lounge Rooms, a multi-musician, globe-trotting concert to benefit Oxfam’s COVID-19 response efforts. Besides the trio, other artists performing include Sharon Van Etten, Waxahatchee (aka Katie Crutchfield) and Kevin Morby, Sheryl Crow, The War on Drugs, Jonathan Wilson, Emily King, Lukas Nelson, Nathaniel Rateliff, Bedouine, Fred Armisen, and more. The show will stream via Lucius’ Instagram Live today starting at 3pm PDT/6pm EDT/10pm GMT/(Monday) 9am AEST.
Courtney Barnett and Lucius recently performed together at Luck Reunion‘s live stream replacement, Til Further Notice. Willie Nelson canceled his annual anti-festival because of the coronavirus outbreak, so the organizers went virtual. Kurt Vile, Lucinda Williams, Margo Price, Jewel, Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, Willie Nelson and over a dozen others performed from the comfort of their homes or other safe places. The broadcast was free, but a tip jar was open if you wanted to donate to the musicians. Courtney and Lucius played three songs, a cover of “Only Fools Rush In,” Courtney’s “Avant Gardner,” and Lucius’ “Dusty Trails.” You can watch their set here. It starts around 3 hours and 8 minutes in.
For today’s show, the trio is asking folks to donate money to Oxfam’s Covid-19 Relief Fund. The fund supports Oxfam’s work around the world to slow the spread of the virus by increasing the delivery of soap, clean water, and other sanitation services to refugees and people living in higher-risk environments. Oxfam’s teams are on the ground now, providing advice and support tailored to local languages and customs. They hope to scale up this work as the pandemic continues to spread. You can make a donation at http://Oxfam.org or can make a onetime $20 payment by texting “OXFAM” to 20222.
Live From Our Lounge Rooms will visit with each performer in their natural habitat. Some artists are encouraging requests. Fred Armisen solicited input via Instagram. He’s weighing throwing in a song by one of his “fake” bands, either Crisis of Conformity or The Blue Jean Committee.
We predict Jonathan Wilson‘s set will include a song or two from his record, Dixie Blur, which came out earlier this month. You can check out the dog-friendly video for album single, “In Heaven Making Love,” below.
Nathaniel Rateliff also has a new record out, And It’s Still Alright. His tour to support the album was cut short by the coronavirus lockdown. So, instead of playing to a crowd at Town Hall in New York City, he released a video he shot there. You can watch it below. Come June, Nathaniel’s supposed to hit the road with Bob Dylan.
Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs is also slated to perform today. He went live on Instagram on Friday night and previewed some new tunes. He might try them out again. His set starts around 5:30pm PDT/8:30pm EDT 6pm PDT/9pm EDT.
If you haven’t already set your clocks for 3pm PDT/6pm EDT/10pm GMT/(Monday) 9am AEST, what are you waiting for? Again, the show streams from Lucius’ Instagram, which can be found here. UPDATE: Kurt Vile has been added to the lineup.
