thanks for watching. good night. this is "nightline." tonight, quarantining in concert. drive up, drive in, rock out. live music america during the pandemic. ? it's amazing to be playing, people honking horns and flick headlights. it was really magical. >> musicians finding a way to connect with their audietrea ti tokking. plus, beach battle. in a summer of social distancing, waves of confusion sweeping america's beaches, economic pressure in coastal communities pushing governors to reopen. is fun in the sun worth the risk? from malibu beach which is now open, i'm randy thomas, and

"nightline" starts right now with juju charng in new york. >> thank you, randy. the debate over shoreline safety heati heating up. governors starting to let people back on the beach. here's matt gutman.gutman. >> surfing is water therapy. you're connecting with the ocean. you can leave all the stresses of your day to day life on the shore and then just go out. >> reporter: it's been almost two months since pro surfer cassie has caught a wave at her favorite breaks. >> i'm so excited to get back into the water. >> reporter: the first paddles into the surf, producing whelps of excitement. >> yeah! so happy to be back in the water. >> reporter: closures around the state had strictly prohibited

public access to this iconic coastline. >> having the beaches shut down has been really hard, as a surfer and someone who activates myself in all that i do from the ocean, it's been difficult. >> reporter: after months of being cooped up at home, millions of americans are likely feeling the same way, eager to venture into the outdoors again ahead of memorial day weekend. but exposure to the sun is no longer one of the big worries. nationwide, restrictions preventing beachgoers vary state by state, even county by counties. many requiring face masks and abandoning towels, coolers and umbrellas. governors across the country agreeing to start opening beache beaches. >> we've been noticing a bit of a trend. >> covid positive individuals has decreased by 21%.

>> reporter: florida was one of the first states to open in early may after hosting hordes of spring breakers back in march. but issues of overcrowding caused some cities like naples to close, reopen and close s s s shores begin. >> i am a 51-year-old woman. i don't need the government telling me how to be healthy. >> reporter: naples' beaches are back open with various restrictions. keeping up and enforcing guidelines is a looming challenge for those tasked with protecting us, like lifeguard specialist pono barnes. >> we've never closed the beaches like though. there's no playbook. >> reporter: his unit covers 72 miles of coastline, making sure that families like the

can stay safe in the surf. >> it's the first day it's open. as you can see, they couldn't be more thrilled. especially with school being shut down. >> reporter: but on the first day of opening, a learning curve. despite a requirement for face coverings, we didn't see many. what do you feel about the whole mask/not mask thing? >> i think it's good when you're in crowds at a grocery store or things like that. i don't feel much of a need of it here compared with going to trader joe's earlier today. >> reporter: what if there's a drowning, someone gets pulled off the beach? >> we have masks, gowns, whether if it's attending to cpr, we do everything we normally would do with extra protection.

>> reporter: for cape may, tourism has been the lifeblood of the community. county wr county residents like 71-year-old bill green hoping to preserve it as one of the oldest vacation destinations. >> the impact on shore communities is significant. there's no question about that. it's a town that thrives on tourism. and we haven't had tourism since march. >> reporter: this morning, the retired professor hit the boardwalk, passing out ppe and educational pamphlets as a social distancing ambassador, part of a new county health initiative called six feet saves. megan santiago and liberty cos is responsible for the campaign. >> if we can prevent it and help our local hospitals out that way and help our nurses and doctors who are on the front lines.

>> be being a resident of a shore town, you have to be resilient. i'm very confident we'll be able to pull through this. >> reporter: in a typical year, they draw more than 10 million visitors. >> the economic drivers. if you can safely reopen that beach and get people spending money in the beach bars, at the r restaurants and boardwalk is one way for the economy to kick off with the bonus that everyone's having a great time. >> reporter: uncertainty about the safety of travel could mean more beachgoeres. >> it feels very intimidating to step outside your comfort zone, but we have seen that online a lot of the searches about travel right now are saying, when will it be safe to travel? how can i travel safely? what that means is by choice or by necessity, more americans than ever will be heading to

local beaches. >> reporter: according to aaa, online bookings have been rising, though modestly since mid april, suggesting travelers' confidence is slowly improving, but domestic flights have plunged almost 70% since last year, and this week seven out of ten hotel rooms across the country are vacant. all of this has devastated hawaii's tourism industry. >> waikiki is normally bustling with travelers to see waikiki now, it's a ghost town. there's no one on the beaches, the sidewalks, shops, hotels are boarded up. my hotel is board up. it's just such an extreme difference from the normal waikiki that we know. >> reporter: wendy perez has worked at this resort for 31 years. the once thriving strip she's come to know so well now desolate. the tourism industry here has come to a screeching halt. >> our first and foremost concern was for my family and

myself. but i'm also taking care of my 85-year-old father, and he's in the high risk group. >> reporter: she's now one of the more than 200,000 people applying for unemployment. nearly a third of hawaii's total workforce. >> you're mainly worried about your day to day bills. month to month bills. >> reporter: so many can't afford to cover the bills, and many in the hours-long food lines worried about where the next meal will come from. >> i am eager to come back, but a lot of people are eager to make sure that health and safety is first and foremost before we go back to work. we have a lot ofl world. so we want to make sure that, you know, our health is going to be taken care of. >> reporter: from waikiki to the breaks of malibu, returning to the healing powers of the ocean will provide everything they

need, but it's a start. >> our thanks to matt. up next, how the music industry is adapting to the coronavirus. one country star bringing back a classic concert venue. ♪ ♪ we were so alive ♪ ain't it crazy how the best things in my life ♪

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. with covid-19 putting an end to crowded clubs and packed consrtco concerts, the music industry are keeping their fans listening any way they can. >> reporter: the big stage, the ♪ want to take a bow >> it was really magical. >> reporter: keith urban performing for health care work eshs workers at a drive-in movie theater outside nashville, tennessee. >> it felt amazing to be playing, people honking horns and flicking headlights. >> reporter: you're one of the first performers to perform in

front of a live audience since this all started. >> i had the idea for a drive-in over a month ago. we set out figuring out how to do it in a safe way. how the crew could be minimized. musician on stage could be minimal, everything had to be very, very minimal. >> reporter: urban's move a huge first step as the world of live music tries to find its footing amidst the coronavirus pandemic. >> freezing and stopping and not doing anything was not an option. so how do we move forward tus us but f . audience. >> reporter: the industr prep $ ticket sales alone. some of today's biggest entertainers are finding new ways to adapt and connect with fans. ♪ is ♪ >> reporter: from a new number one song fueled by a

dance craze. not to mention life-stroom deejay sets that have turned living rooms into personal nightclubs. today's world of music looks dramatically different than it did two months ago. as artists, roadies and industry inside ares t insiders figure out what's next. >> we've seen everyone from cardi b take over their instagram live. it's been really special to see so many musicians come together for their fans. >> we have 46,000. >> reporter: one of those artists, legendary deejay, dnice. he's been called a hero fioricefor sets called "club quarantine."

with hundreds of thousands of view ire viewers, he turned into a sensation. you had michelle obama, mark zuckerberg. >> it just kept growing. >> reporter: but for someone who built his career on the road, performing for audiences of thousands, he says it's still not the same. >> i was on the plane every day. once the pandemic hit and i will to be still and sit at home, i honestly didn't know what to do. >> reporter: it's a sentiment shared by people all over the industry. production artist working for kanye west even others says he's never seen anything like this. >> the only thing that even comes close at all would be 9/11. that was a few weeks, maximum a month, and everybody got back up to it. >> reporter: he says there are

many being forgotten. >> there's 12 million people in live entertainment in the u.s. alone. >> reporter: his team was supposed to kick off justin bieber's tour tonight in seattle. >> it's kind of sad for me and the fellas that we're not doing that today, but our time will come. >> reporter: he spends about ten months a year on the road. now he and 87 employees are out of work. >> we went from having the biggest year planned, everybody knew this was the biggest year we had, to zero dollars overnight. >> reporter: what's keeping you up at night? >> my crews and their families being able to eat. you know, eindependent contractors often live check to check. >> there's a sense of community, and there's a sense of strength and great art being made through it.

>> reporter: it's a setback the world had never seen before. but, if there's anything aboute thpeopleeoth it and uss that they're resilient, and they can't wait to be back. >> the live entertainment industry in times like this is often the first to close and the last to return. does that worry you at all? >> it worries me to a extent that i believe in music so much. i want to hear the drums, you know, i want to feel the music. you can't get that off the computer. there's nothing better than live music, and it's truly the only language we all speak. >> i miss being crammed into a room with a bunch of strangers. i miss being sweaty. i miss having a drink in my hand. >> i mean, there's nothing like human people scream when you drop their favorite song. you can watch the way someone's body is moving, like that's how i deejayed. it was base the on body

movement. it was nothing like feeling that energy >> when i'm able to meet fa fa a backstage. >> reporter: do you feel you got to scratch a little bit of that itch yesterday? >> definitely, to have a guitar in my hands and be on a stage felt extraordinary, felt like breathing again. >> god bless you guys. >> is >> a final note when we come back. outstanding nutrition with the power to change lives. this is purina pro plan liveclear. discover a new world ♪ discover what's good - pantene nutrient blends

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and finally tonight, over these past turbulent months as our country endured a staggering, all-encompassing disaster brought on by this pandemic we've been inspired by your stories and the fortitude and sgrgrace of our colleagues, is skeleton crew here in the office. >> in the midst of this crisis, we've never been prouder to be journalists, never prouder of our colleagues.

it was 19th century american poet said good timber doesn't grow with ease, the stronger the wind the stronger the tree. as we've seen these many weeks, people across the nation, people at "nightline," all made of good timber. >> so we'd like to leave you with anote a note of sgrud . >> have a good and safe weekend.

♪ ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, ba, da, jimmy kimmel live ♪ this is ridiculous. from his house. >> jimmy: hello again, it's me, jimmy, welcome to my house. i hope you had a nice day of meetings in your fat pants. at this point, i've done so much working from home, once we

go back, i'm planning to spend two months living at work. it has been quite a quarantine so far. this morning we have a very picky 5 year old daughter who last night decided she no longer eats corn. this morning she decided not to eat her pancakes. because i made them with a new mix. they stopped using the mix i used to use. i had to find a new one. i tried to find something kind of healthy. i don't trust the one that just says add water. that's for kool-aid. i got a mix made of whole-grains, and i add the eggs and milk. i made it in the shape of a butterfly, which she loves. the syrup is perfect, and she hated it. she took one bite and says, "it tastes like it has seeds in it." i explained there were no seeds in it, even though there were we found out later. but we got in an hour-long standoff over this. eat the pancakes, you love pancakes, no i don't. you eat them every day, not these. these are disgusting. these are the same pancakes i