The Virgin Islands is now open for visitors, and bars and restaurants are serving customers.
And now, live music is set to make a return next week. But for one VI resident, the music never really stopped.
Live music and people dancing along at their favorite establishments on the islands. It’s live entertainment we’ve all missed so dearly since COVID-19 restrictions hit the territory in March.
And for Priscilla Lynn, it’s been especially tough, “You would see me out there a lot, dancing a lot of times grabbing the tip bucket running it through the crowd.”
Priscilla created the Facebook group, Street Level VI (SLVI) about a year and a half ago to support the live music industry on island, “I love live music, I enjoy going out to it, after both of the hurricanes when the live music came back, it was one of the things I did that kept me sane,” said Lynn.
Street Level VI is the go-to source for people to find out where live music entertainment is happening.
When the quarantine hit, Lynn considered going on hiatus but decided to come up with other ways to keep members engaged, “Some of the musicians have done the live virtual on the Facebook live or streaming and posted it, so I do participate in a lot of those, even if there’s some stateside bands and musicians that often come down for USVI tours, I also will feature on there. So I have had to really switch up my feature and put some interesting industry articles in there too like, what people were doing in the States and could we do that down here? Could we create a drive-in and have live music concerts? So kind of fielding those ideas,” Lynn said.
Street Level VI not only supports island musicians but youth music programs too. Lynn has donated hundreds towards youth music education programs in the territory, which she hopes to grow, “I’ve seen if children are involved in music at a very young age the difference it makes in them as a person in their life,” said Lynn.
On Monday, June 8th onsite live music can resume at businesses on island, although with restrictions including distancing guidelines.
And while the large crowds live music tends to bring out may still be in the future, Lynn is confident a full return will soon come, “Come out and dance with me when the live music comes back! I really miss the dancing… My hope is that when it comes back, it comes back even stronger,” said Lynn.
Lynn says any locations planning to begin live music once again, can send a direct notice to Street Level VI in advance so she can add it to the announcements of upcoming live music entertainment.
