Singer-songwriter Grace Potter will be bringing her music to New Jersey this week for the opening performance at The Vogel in Red Bank. It is a new indoor performance venue that is opening in the middle of the pandemic.
Located within the Count Basie Center for the Arts, The Vogel was supposed to open in June, but the opening was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The audience is now capped at 150 people with social distancing. The Vogel is named after local philanthropists Sheldon and Anne Vogel.
CEO Adam Phillipson says that he believes that indoor live music can be performed safely.
“This is the new world that we’re in. The safety measure that we put in place are things that we hadn’t thought about before. But we have done that level of thinking,” he says.
Potter says that she welcomes the rare opportunity to play live music once again.
“It’s been very regenerative for me to get back out on the road. Even if it’s tough, even when it is literally just me and my baby and my husband turning our own guitars and setting things up. It feels like getting back to square one and back to my roots in some ways,” Potter says.
Potter says that she has added some new songs since the pandemic began.
“I have one song I wrote in the first couple of weeks of the lockdown called 'Each Other,'” she says. “Our energy has been going to that song because of its healing capacity and how it is bringing joy and some perspective.”