A silent auditorium with row upon row of empty seats. Microphones standing lone and slender with singers. Drums sitting forlornly undrummed. Casinos without beeps or clangs. Outside, the main strip in Las Vegas – typically restless and seething with life – is deserted.
In a film about musicians and music, it’s this moment of quietness that conveys the enormity of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. The last band on stage in Las Vegas, or perhaps anywhere, was the rock’n’roll group Chicago, abruptly silenced after half a century in which they never stopped touring and never stopped recording.
