There are no stage lights, no booming speakers and there’s not even any fans. But a local musician is on a roll as he brings his Self-Isolation Tour to the world.
CJ Bissett, 23, of Winfield has been touring various outdoor locations performing for no one in particular, except anyone who wants to listen from home.
“The Self-Isolating Tour is an event I started during the coronavirus pandemic with the idea being to play 10 performances at scenic wonderful outdoor spots across the next two months. With the help of some friends, we record and capture the performances, and then put them up online to entertain people stuck at home,” said Bissett, whose first performance on The Hill took place April 9 and his last in The Orchards will take place June 11. “I like telling people that it’s like a real concert in that I will engage with the audience as I would during a real performance, and that watching any of these performances equates to attending the show. I realized that it would be a great way to keep myself working on my performing as well as providing some entertainment for very bored people.”
Moving to various beautiful but isolated outdoor spots for each performance, Bissett has even had some artists from across the country join him. Awolk, a solo folk artist from Nova Scotia performed on the May 7 set The Parking Lot, and Bloom, a rock band from B.C., will be performing on May 21 at The Tree.
While they aren’t full concert length (due to limited attention spans online), the sets are 20-30 minutes long.
“This amount of music in weekly doses seems to hit the right spot,” said Bissett, who is happy to use his voice and guitar to help rid some people of boredom.
“I think people are currently stuck bouncing between the scary but necessary updates on the pandemic and the entertainment they can use to escape from the negativity of it all. If I can be a part of that, if my music can calm someone down for 20 minutes at a time, I think that would be great.”
Through it all, he is also using the platform to help those in worse positions than himself by raising money for Food Banks Canada.
“I’d be upset if I didn’t take a chance to help out those in a worse position than myself during all of this, and if we can raise some money through doing these shows that would be fantastic.”
You can check out all the weekly performances, there will be 10 in total, on Bissett’s YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/cjbissett
Those able to can make a donation and help feed those going without food during this difficult time at gf.me/u/xyd3q6.
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