No one could have predicted everything that happened in 2020. Projections for 2021 might be moot, too, but in the anything-can-happen spirit of last year, here are some tongue-in-cheek visions for the Valley’s music future.
The clandestine desert-rave wave of the 1990s returns.
With nightclubs closed amidst the coronavirus crisis, Phoenicians will once again venture into the desert for secret dance parties driven by DJs with generators and illuminated by glow sticks. Doot-doot.
Arizona Hip Hop Festival sells out Talking Stick Resort Arena.
After years of packing Arizona Federal Theatre with 10,000-plus people, the annual festival hosted a much smaller “social distance edition” at Phoenix’s Monarch Theatre in December 2020. Demand from hungry hip-hop fans could pack TSRA in 2021.
Playboy Manbaby and HotRock SupaJoint collaborate on a concept album.
After spending most of 2020 in lockdown, local bizarro indie rockers Playboy Manbaby and comedy hip-hop pothead HotRock SupaJoint reveal their pot-rock and out-of-tune saxophone opera, Mermaid Pterodactyl Smokin’ Weed, Yo, recorded entirely via Zoom.
Local promoters launch the Vacant Lot Rock Concert Series.
They transform their empty parking lots into alfresco performance spaces where people can watch local bands jam live on an outdoor stage from the comfort and safety of their cars.
Ak-Chin Pavilion is renamed. Again.
Its new moniker reflects all its former corporate owners and thus becomes the Blockbuster Cricket Desert Sky Ashley Furniture Home Store Ak-Chin Pavilion, or BCDSAFHSACP for short.
