A Portland Music Organization Will Host Open-Mic Vigils for Those Who Died in 2020

Starting this Friday, Friends of Noise will host candlelight vigils around the city in remembrance of people who passed away last year due to COVID-19 or other causes.

The organization will set up a PA system in nine different parks from Kenton to Lents for the open mic vigils. There will also be mutual aid groups tabling at each event.

“For the past year, I’ve been struck at the lack of national to local acknowledgment of the emotional toll of the loss of life due to the pandemic and other causes,” Friends of Noise Executive Director André Middleton wrote in a press release. Middleton recently lost both an aunt and an uncle: “Both were my mom’s last siblings and the reason that I moved to Oregon. Sadly we, like millions of people across the country, were unable to say goodbye and pay our respects due to the pandemic.”

The vigils will be held daily in different parts of the city starting on May 21. Attendees will be invented to line up to say the names of people that they’ve lost last year. The final vigil, a May 30 gathering in Pioneer Courthouse Square, will have ASL interpreters broadcast on XRAY.fm and will be simulcastes on YouTube and Open Signal.

The full schedule can be found here.