Dinosaur Jr to play 2 socially distanced concerts in New England next month

Dinosaur Jr will make a return to live music with a pair of limited-capacity, socially distanced outdoor concerts — one a “drive-in” show with fans in cars, the other with attendees in spaced-out “grids” — in New England next month, the band announced today.

First up is a show on Sept. 11 at South Farms in Morris, Connecticut. For $110, fans get access to an 8-foot-by-8-foot grid of grass that can accommodate two people. There are similarly sized grids left open on either side, to ensure social distancing, with one-way aisles marked between each row of grids.

The grids are also offset, so the space in front of an occupied grid is an unoccupied grid, for both social distancing and to provide an unobstructed view. Here’s a diagram that shows how that works.

Then, on Sept. 12, the band plays the Drive-In Live series at Cheshire Fairground in Swanzey, New Hampshire. Tickets are $99 to $199, depending on how close to the stage you want to park, and that’s per car, with five occupants maximum. People who buy front-row tickets — the $199 ones — must drive a car; no trucks or SUVs will be allowed up front.

At both venues, masks are required at all times except for when fans are inside their cars or in their “grids.” The Connecticut venue says it will perform temperature checks on all attendees, and presumably bar anyone with a fever from entering as a way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — though that’s not explicitly stated.

Tickets for both shows go on sale 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday, Aug. 14.

Dinosaur Jr tour dates

Sept. 11: Twilight Concerts on the Farm, South Farms, Morris, CT, USA
Sept. 12: Drive In Live, Cheshire Fairgrounds, Swanzey, NH, USA
June 12: Primavera Sound 2021, Porto, Portugal

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• Vintage Video: Dinosaur Jr previews ‘You’re Living All Over Me’ at UMass in 1986
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