Big concerts remain on Charlotte’s summer schedule. Here are the odds they happen?

Billy Joel was supposed to be in Charlotte last Saturday night.

The Piano Man was originally scheduled to play Bank of America Stadium on Saturday, April 18, 2020. But just before — as you might have heard — the world shut down practically overnight due a global pandemic, and just like that, it became a pretty terrible idea to pack thousands of people into a place where there’d be lots of yelling, screaming and singing.

Joel’s concert was pushed back a full year, to April 17, 2021. To last Saturday night.

As it turned out, rather incredibly, a year later turned out to be too soon. He recently punted again. Now he’s shooting for April 23, 2022.

This kind of thing has happened with live shows over and over and over in the past 13 months; that is, artists postponing due to COVID-19, then having to postpone again. And, sometimes, again. Or, in the case of Garth Brooks, again and again.

But more so than at any point in the past 13 months, there’s reason to have hope that life will return to normal (or at least be normal-ish) in the near future. That we’ll actually see a real concert soon — one where we don’t have to honk our horns in order to show our appreciation for the performer.

According to data from the CDC, as of Monday, 50,4% of Americans over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, and nearly 84 million (or 32.5%) have been fully vaccinated.

There’s safety in those numbers.

There’s also a caveat, though: The coronavirus is still putting people in hospitals, and it’s still killing people.

I suspect we’ll need to see a big drop in both of those numbers before promoters and artists feel confident enough that concerts can be held in something resembling the traditional manner safely. (And by “something resembling” we mean masks will still be required, with tickets possibly being sold in pods to keep groups intact but still socially distanced from others.)

“You get one event that’s a super-spreader, and that can still happen — you want to be far away from that,” an agent who works with several major artists recently told Rolling Stone. “I still think on a national touring level, no, wait until next year.”

Another major factor is that the current state restrictions in place until at least April 30 limit capacity for live performance venues to 50%, whether indoors or outdoors. In other words, a lot of it is up to the governor.

So, given both the public health concerns and the fact that artists will have a hard time breaking even if venues are half-empty, I also suspect that promoters and artists will continue to operate in the short term as if they’re playing a kind of weird game of chicken. Meaning they set a date and hold onto it for as long as they can, hoping the obstacle will move before they have to avoid the obstacle by getting themselves out of the way.

It’s frustrating for almost everyone, and it’s almost impossible to rest assured that something on the schedule today will still be on the schedule tomorrow, or even an hour from now.

Case in point: While doing research for this story, I noted that country singer Thomas Rhett was listed on Live Nation’s website as being set to bring his “Center Point Road Tour” to PNC Music Pavilion on July 9. Ten minutes later, an email landed in my inbox announcing new new dates for Rhett’s tour.

He’ll now be in Charlotte on Oct. 8. Maybe.

On second thought ... strike that. I’m gonna say most likely. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’ll most likely make that date. I’ll put it at 92%.

And I’ll also give you my totally unscientific predictions (OK, they’re guesses) for whether several other upcoming major Charlotte shows will happen on schedule this spring and summer.

Spectrum Center

The city’s largest indoor venue has three big shows scheduled this summer (all of which have been on the 2021 calendar since last year, when COVID pushed them out of 2020): Nickelodeon’s JoJo Siwa on Aug. 3, country legends Alabama on Aug. 13, and crooner Michael Bublé on Aug. 17.

There’s already a little bit of a precedent for operating at reduced capacity, thanks to the Charlotte Hornets. The NBA team has been limiting crowds to 25% of its 19,000-seat capacity all spring, and plans to continue to do so through the end of the season on May 16.

By August, it’s certainly quite possible that COVID numbers will have trended downward. The governor also may ease restrictions even more by then, too.

But I can’t imagine that, in four month, people will be sitting or standing shoulder-to-shoulder and breathing all over each other, often in poorly ventilated indoor spaces — or that any of those artists will make the trip here to play for small, anxious crowds.

The shows all fall within a two-week period, so I’m guessing either all or none will happen.

I predict none will happen.

Likelihood that you’ll see a show at Spectrum Center this summer: 19%.

Bojangles Coliseum

The Charlotte Thunder, a professional indoor American football team, has been playing home games here since the season began in March. A sellout crowd during COVID times is 1,200 fans. Capacity at Bojangles? About 9,000, depending on what type of event the venue’s being configured for.

The first non-sports event scheduled for the coliseum is Mike Epps’s “In Real Life Comedy Tour.” It’s also the only non-sports event scheduled for the coliseum this summer.

The date? June 18. Too soon.

Likelihood that you’ll see Mike Epps at Bojangles Coliseum in June: 11%.

Ovens Auditorium

Bojangles’ sister venue (they share a parking lot) is much smaller than Spectrum Center and Bojangles, with a capacity of about 2,400 people.

And so far, it’s betting big on the summer of 2021.

On July 17, “Maks & Val” — a professional dance tour starring brothers Maksim and Valentin Chmerkovskiy — are set to perform. Comedian Gabriel Iglesias has shows scheduled for Aug. 5-6; the sketch improv group “Whose Live Anyway” follows Aug. 7; and Pink Floyd tribute band Brit Floyd headlines the sole true concert of the summer for Ovens, on Aug. 22.

Most ambitiously, Blumenthal Performing Arts still plans to present the Broadway touring show “Wicked” beginning Sept. 8, for a run of 32 performances. Blumenthal president Tom Gabbard recently told the Observer that he doesn’t expect that to change.

This venue is a tough one. It can get cramped in there, especially in the lobbies, before the show and during intermissions for shows like “Wicked.” I can’t see us being in a place by late summer where 2,400 people feel comfortable squeezing inside that theater 32 times over the course of a month.

But my gut tells me Gabbard and his team will find a way to pull it off, though probably with smaller-than-usual audiences. As for those earlier shows? I’m not nearly as bullish.

Likelihood of “Wicked” happening as scheduled: 73%.

Likelihood of any of those other shows staying on the schedule in August: 18%.

Bank of America Stadium

We’ve been waiting a long time for the Carolina Panthers’ home field to get back into the concert business.

After several years without a dedicated concert, the stage was set for live music’s big comeback here last year, with bookings by Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, The Rolling Stones, and co-headliners Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe. But COVID blew all of them off of the schedule.

The first of those acts in line to return? Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, who are hoping to rock out with Charlotte fans (and support bands Poison and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts) on June 24 — if everything falls into place.

I’m not optimistic. The stadium was built for crowds of 70,000-plus, and at the Panthers’ final home game of the 2020 season, on Jan. 3, seating capacity was reduced to 1,500 during a winter surge in infection rates. Now, obviously, the situation has gotten better since then. It hopefully will continue to improve over the next two months.

But I’m expecting to see the “Rescheduled for 2022” press release any day now.

Likelihood of Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe being here in June: 6%.

PNC Music Pavilion

Concert season typically starts at this big amphitheater near Charlotte’s border with Concord in April. But this year, the first show on the schedule isn’t until June 11, when Dave Matthews Band is set to play here. It’s the second city on their restarted/postponed 2020 tour — the Charlotte show was originally supposed to happen last July.

Concertgoers will almost certainly feel safer coming to an outdoor venue than an indoor one, and while bookings are down at PNC compared with a “normal” spring/summer, there are still a surprising number of shows that are on the docket.

I think the artists will be ready to come. I think the big question will be whether they’re OK coming for a reduced payday, since I predict strict capacity limits at least in June and July (probably in the neighborhood of 50% to 70% of the roughly 19,000 max, including space for 10,000 on its general-admission lawn).

But I’d bet on being able to see a show here at some point before the end of the summer. Here’s how I see your chances from show to show:

Dave Matthews Band on June 11: 35%. Probably too soon.

Backstreet Boys on June 25: 41%.

Chicago on June 29: 42%.

The Black Crowes on June 30: 43%.

Megadeth on July 17: 51%.

Kidz Bop on July 18: 79%. I’m giving them good odds because they were never going to come anywhere close to selling out to begin with.

Luke Bryan on July 23: 34%. Bro-country shows like his thrive on a party atmosphere. I think restrictions will still be in place in mid- to late July. If they are, he’ll wait till he can come when the place is going to be packed.

The Doobie Brothers on July 26: 76%. This is their 50th anniversary tour, postponed from last year. So it’s really their 51st anniversary tour. They’re getting too old to keep pushing this thing back.

Matchbox Twenty on Aug. 1: 68%.

Chris Stapleton on Aug. 12: 71%.

Alanis Morissette on Aug. 21: 83%. She announced her new slate of dates — including this one — just last week. She must have confidence things will be good by then, so I do, too.

Judas Priest on Sept. 13: 89%.

Maroon 5 on Sept. 17: 90%. This will be an interesting one to watch. I say 90% chance it happens, and a 50% chance it’ll be the first concert that sells out at full capacity “post-COVID.” We’ll see...

Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre

This is basically a newer, more-intimate version of PNC, situated in a much cooler location (in the AvidXchange Music Factory entertainment complex) with much cooler scenery (the Charlotte skyline makes a picturesque backdrop).

It has a capacity of 5,000 — 2,000 reserved seats and another 3,000 on the sloped lawn.

Like PNC, it’s got the benefit of being entirely outdoors. And like PNC, though it has fewer shows than usual booked for the warm-weather months due to the pandemic, it’s got a healthier schedule than you might expect.

5 Seconds Of Summer on June 8: 29%. There’s always a lot of screaming at 5SOS’s shows, and the thought of being around a lot of screaming will probably still be pretty unsettling seven weeks from now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a postponement announcement fairly soon.

Primus on June 20: 40%.

Jamey Johnson on July 17: 53%.

Alicia Keys on Aug. 3: 70%.

Louis the Child on Aug. 5: 71%.

Blackberry Smoke on Aug. 15: 74%.

Brothers Osbourne on Aug. 26: 79%.

Goo Goo Dolls on Aug. 27: 80%.

The bottom line

The best ways to improve your odds of safely seeing a big show this spring or summer? Simple: Get vaccinated, do your part to slow or stop the spread of the virus by wearing a mask and socially distancing, and — if you can afford to take the financial gamble — support the artists you like by buying tickets now, as a way to show them that you’re ready if they are.

I hope to see you at a concert as soon as possible. It’s been way, way too long.