Perfume Genius, Foo Fighters and Benjamin Gibbard will be featured on Viva Vera 20 !, a livestream special to mark the 20th anniversary of the first show at the Vera Project in Seattle. The show will air on VeraTV.org on Wednesday, January 27th at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, and features additional performances and birthday wishes from TV on the radio, Jeff Rosenstock, No Age, Tacocat, Mike Park and others.
Activists Shannon Stewart, James Keblas and Kate Becker founded VERA in Seattle in 2001 in response to the city’s Teen Dance Ordinance, a 1985 law that made concerts prohibitively expensive and difficult to produce for all ages. (The city council overturned the ordinance a year later under pressure from the community.) The venue hosted early shows by independent actors that would lead to international success, including Perfume Genius, TV on the radio, and Macklemore.
The television on Radio Tunde Adebimpe said of the Vera project: “I remember getting it [to VERA] and the feeling of community and love for the room and the people who were in it was immediate and palpable. It makes me so happy that it’s still about offering that inspiration and that fellowship to everyone who shows up because that’s a life changing quality. “
Read Pitchfork’s feature “The Year Live Music Stopped,” including comments from Jonathan Zwickel, Chairman of the Vera Project.
