Dermot Kennedy On How He’ll Take Livestreaming To The Next Level At London’s Natural History Museum

Dermot Kennedy doesn't have control over COVID-19's toll on live music, but with his forthcoming one-off livestream show at one of London's most magical places, he's making lemonade.

The soulful Irish singer/songwriter’s Some Summer Night global performance on July 30 will bring him to London’s Natural History Museum, a majestic Romanesque architectural landmark, for what he’s calling his first proper performance since live music's shutdown—no audience included.

Kennedy will perform with a full band and will have special appearances including from actor Paul Mescal. Like an actual concert, viewers will have to buy a ticket to watch. The stream will go live on YouTube at different time zones beginning in Ireland, the U.K. and the rest of Europe at 9 p.m. IST & BST / 10 p.m. CEST. Sales will include an option to give to the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

The "Giants" singer has gone live from home, but he's excited to bring fans a different level of sonic and visual experience while they all can’t share a space.

The Natural History Museum will certainly bring awe—he will perform under an 82-foot blue whale skeleton named Hope, the largest creature to have ever lived, the museum notes, that is suspended from the ceiling. Hope will add perspective for Kennedy.

"I think it's important to experience things in life that make you feel small and make you realize that you're just this tiny person on the earth," he tells GRAMMY.com from London. "And so that does that for me. And it just shows me how incredible history is and how incredible nature is."

Kennedy spoke to GRAMMY.com about his vision behind the show's production, what fans can expect from the setlist, how he stays aware of race relations conversations and how he’ll remember the time of COVID-19.

You've performed from home. What made you want to take it to the next level like this?

Just a love of putting on shows, honestly. It was very jarring for me because we were in the middle of a tour in America and we had to leave unexpectedly, of course. I went from playing in big, beautiful theaters and big arenas with thousands of people, to singing into my phone at home, which was fine, but, of course, I miss that feeling. And of course, I miss that energy. It was quite difficult for me to adapt to that and so we just got talking about the idea. We can't have an audience with us right now, but I just wanted to do something that would sound proper and that would look proper. And I just wanted to be ambitious just with the production. It just kind of grew legs and we started talking about venues and then we went for kind of the most ambitious venue we could think of and it worked out. So it feels good to be doing something because obviously we're so restricted in the current scenario, but it just feels so good to be able to do something with proper production value.

Why at the London Natural History Museum?

I've been in there [and] it feels cool when I talk about the show because I don't have to sort of bullshit about how much I love that place. I've had so many days off in London where that's exactly where I'll go. I'll just wander around for a few hours and the exhibitions are so good. To me, especially as someone who's not necessarily, I don't know, I wouldn't consider myself religious, if I go in there, that to me, is so meaningful and it's... I think it's important to experience things in life that make you feel small and make you realize that you're just this tiny person on the earth. And so that does that for me. And it just shows me how incredible history is and how incredible nature is. I've always been blown away by it. It just feels like a really cool place to do something.

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font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;"> View this post on Instagram</div></div><div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"><div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"></div></div><div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)"></div></div><div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style=" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"></div> <div style=" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"></div> <div style=" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"></div></div></div></a> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CCY88TWg-56/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">What an honour it will be to bring you a show from such an incredibly important room. Playing my songs under the skeleton of a blue whale (who just happens to be called “Hope”, and was found off the coast of Ireland). This is going to be such a beautiful moment. We’ve got so much planned for it, and I can’t wait to share it with you. X</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/dermotkennedy/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Dermot Kennedy</a> (@dermotkennedy) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2020-07-08T17:42:33+00:00">Jul 8, 2020 at 10:42am PDT</time></p></div></blockquote> <script async src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script></center>

You're going to perform right under a whale skeleton, is that right?

Yeah. It's a whale, it's a blue whale that was found—and I only found out this after we booked the show, but the whale was actually found off the coast of Ireland and they called it Hope. So yeah, it feels slightly serendipitous in a way, to be honest. Not to get cheesy, but it just... It's cool that it's not just a whale, it's a whale that was found in Ireland, and it feels like a cool thing.

What will make this performance most special for you?

Honestly, I definitely don't want to celebrate the fact that there's no audience there, but, when I'm in the studio, you put so, so much work into every single second of the song, and every little detail. When you're playing in venues and there's a crowd and stuff, there are certain things get lost because they'll just be crowd noise. I don't know, you'll just be talking or whatever. I'm so excited about how every little detail is going to matter when we play this show and how everything will be heard. Every single thing that goes into those songs will be heard. I think that's a really beautiful thing and I think it'll add reverence to the music. I think there'll be a really healthy sense of nervousness and pressure and I'm looking forward to that.

You really treasure what you'll sound like for your fans.

Yeah, for sure. I'm a singer/songwriter at the core of it. It would be very easy for me to stay inside my comfort zone and just think about lyrics all the time but there are so many music fans out there who don't go for lyrics and who want to be impressed by arrangements and musical compositions. And so, if you sort of take acts like Arcade Fire [with] beautiful lyrics, but the arrangements are equally, if not more important. So I definitely want to balance the two. I think they go hand in hand. You can't have a great lyric that isn't accompanied by great music. It all goes towards making people feel something. I think that's obvious.

Can you give us any detail on your setlist at all?

We're working on it day by day too, but honestly, it's not the album tracklist, but it feels like it follows a similar narrative in the sense that, we will move in three parts and we will follow a similar sort of story arc to the album. Because we're doing the show alongside Paul Mescal, he's going to have parts that influence what I do musically. And so yeah, we're working on it. Basically, I want to make sure I'm not just standing in the middle of the hall playing my guitar for an hour and a bit, you know what I mean? I want it to move, but I want the show to grow and I want to have different arrangements and I want to keep it exciting for people. So yeah, it's coming together, but, I am very excited because it feels like we're going to be able to put a story inside the setlist. And obviously that's got so much to do with Paul's parts, but I'm very excited to do something unique.

There's so much going on, whether it's COVID and conversations around race. How are you doing? How are you navigating these times, either personally or professionally?

I'm good. I feel like those things are very separate, and personally, for me, my bubble is so small, living in rural Ireland. I was even saying to somebody yesterday, I was driving around and it was all country roads and it looked all beautiful. And I was like, "Where you are in the world, it really, really influences how you feel about the world." Obviously. But if I just stayed here and didn't read the news or educate myself at all, it would be fine for me to think that everything's fine, everything seems fine and beautiful and it's all good. But it's just not. So for me personally, I try my best to be conscious of struggles going on in the world and how people are doing everywhere. It seems very turbulent and especially in the U.S., it feels like things are just so difficult. I just try to be aware of that. So then, I guess that feeds into my profession when it comes to releasing music. If I've got fans in the U.S. and stuff, I never want to seem ignorant, and I never want to seem tone-deaf or dismissive of any struggles. I've tried my best to release a song that was kind of equal parts, hopeful and aware in a way.

My last question is more specifically about COVID. Years from now, how do you think you'll remember this moment?

Years from now, when the fact that it's such a negative thing has maybe faded, I think I will look at it as a positive thing. I've been on tour for a few years now and so me getting a break from sleeping on a bus isn't the worst thing in the world. I think, by no means have I stopped working. It's just, I'm working on music and I get to be in one place for a while and I think that's very good for me, especially as I kind of lean into the process of making album two and I'm starting to figure out what I want to say and what I want that to be. I just think it's a good time for me to maybe not stop, but slow down.

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Dermot Kennedy On How He’ll Take Livestreaming To The Next Level At London’s Natural History Museum

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