TL;DR: Why don't protests in the U.S. feature live music anymore?
Chris Garlock | Published on 4/12/2025
“From what I have managed to gather,” says musician/activist Dave Rovics, “the vast majority of those 3 million or so people who came together across the US last Saturday spent a couple hours listening to speeches and chants, and, with only a handful of exceptions that I've heard of thus far, heard no live music in between those speeches and chants. What factors have gone into people across the US who are organizing protests over the past decade or so generally deciding not to have live music at their events? How did so many people get the impression, all at the same time, that live music at protests was a bad idea? What are the rationales for excluding the beating heart of the movement from the movement? Why treat the beating heart as if it were cancer, and remove it? How did this happen?”
Dave takes a deep dive into a dozen possible explanations, concluding, “More music may help build your movement, less music won't. And no music will kill it off quickly.” Read Dave’s column here.
photo: at the Hands Off rally in Jackson, WY; photo by Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/KHOL