How the pandemic is actually bringing some concerts to Milwaukee

Every Thursday on Radio Milwaukee we — the Journal Sentinel’s Piet Levy and 88Nine’s Evan Rytlewski — talk about the music coming into Milwaukee and the music coming out of Milwaukee on Tap’d In.

Last week, Dua Lipa announced that she’ll perform her first-ever show in Milwaukee at Fiserv Forum on Wednesday, Feb. 23. The star caliber of that concert alone is noteworthy — it’s not every day one of the world’s biggest pop acts announces a show in Milwaukee. But even more unusual is the timing of the concert announcement: She announced the show less than one month before the date. Arena shows are almost never announced just weeks ahead of time. There must be a story there, right?

And sure enough, there is. As Piet explains on this week’s episode of Tap’d In, Milwaukee was a beneficiary of some last-minute tour rerouting. Because of much stricter Covid-19 regulations in Canada, some touring artists have had to reroute their tours back into the United States after show cancellations.

Dua Lipa is just one of at least three concerts that’s been brought to Milwaukee that way over the last half year or so. Harry Styles’ sold-out show at Fiserv Forum was the result of similar rerouting, as was Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy’s Hella Mega tour last summer. It’s ironic: The very pandemic that has resulted in so many concert cancelations across the city has also helped bring a few big shows here.

Listen to Piet explain how all this works on this week’s episode below.