These are trying times for gigging musicians. As COVID-19 continues its relentless spread, tours are being cancelled and artists and promoters are having to adjust to a brutal new reality, in which the activities that livelihoods depend on are suddenly rendered taboo. When I meet the members of alternative rock band Gezan in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward in early March, the Japanese media has been obsessively covering a cluster of coronavirus cases linked to some music venues in the band’s former hometown of Osaka.