Country music is rethinking itself in isolation.
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But despite massive disruption to the industry, Tamworth's country music stars are imagining a brighter future for the authentic Australian style.
Alt-country singer Allison Forbes is waiting for that bright future in the red heart of Australia's outback - Alice Springs.
She was trapped there in the middle of a national tour brutally cut off mid-stream by the COVID-19 pandemic. She made a decision to stay in the Northern Territory to wait out the virus.
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"I didn't want them to lock me out of here," she said.
"When you're in the middle of a tour and something like this happens you kind of freak out a bit. And I was on my own, so I was like what am I going to do, where am I going to go?
"Apart from the fact it was going to be safer, which it is, I love being in the outback but I love Alice Springs a lot.
"I'm lucky, my house is on wheels, I can move freely around as much as I'd want to. I can't think of a better place to be stuck."
The life of a gigging musician is rarely stable, but Ms Forbes had 2020 completely planned out, including locked-in spots as a support act with major American acts and a potential shot at Bluesfest.
Now she's not sure if she'll play another gig this year.
In just days coronavirus turned her life completely upside down, as every live venue and every concert was instantly closed overnight in March.
"I'm a full time musician and rely solely on performing live," she said.
"To have that taken away, especially after I released a record in February that was doing really well, I was absolutely gutted. I really can't even put it into words."
The COVID-19 crisis has been particularly tough on independent recording artists, the lifeblood of the Australian country music industry. Life is on hold for dozens of Tamworth singer-songwriters.
But it's probably cost few of them as much in pure financial terms as 18-year veteran musician Aleyce Simmonds.
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Ms Simmonds spent the equivalent of a reasonable home deposit producing and marketing a new CD, which had been scheduled for release in May. Without the live tour to back the CD, there's no way to make it back in the short-term.
"I'm trying to think of [the tour] as postponed. Hopefully we'll be able to still do the album launch tour; I've got some dates booked in for the end of the year, depending what happens," she said.
She said she was "over the heartbreak now", but at the time it was like trying to swallow a cup of cement.
About 95 per cent of country music artists don't have a record label, she said - anyone smaller than Kasey Chambers, Lee Kernaghan or Keith Urban is on their own.
Those independent artists, who are essentially small business owners, assume 100 per cent of the risk of music production, often for little financial reward, but are the creative beating heart of the industry.
"It's not just like going to the bank - which is a record label - and going I need a hundred grand to make an album. It's something we do have to work really hard for," Ms Simmonds said.
"It's the independent artists that have taken the biggest hit [from COVID-19] in a way."
Worse, they have limited access to the government support other workers can apply for.
Johanna Hemara works both sides of the fence, a small business owner twice over.
She sings country music on cruise ships, and owns and runs the Tamworth Cold Rock ice cream store in her spare time.
One in five artists and arts workers have been refused access to both JobKeeper and JobSeeker, according to a recent survey by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
"I'm lucky; I've got the business and my husband works," Ms Hemara said.
"A lot of my colleagues, it's their 100 per cent income. They've just been tossed into having no income at all."
Waiting on the world to change
But despite the financial trials of today, all three musicians expressed the view that the COVID-19 crisis could leave the industry in better shape than ever - with a bit of luck.
That's going to take a bit of effort from the average punter, according to Aleyce Simmonds.
If people don't turn up to live concerts, the industry won't recover. Live gigs are where young musicians get experience, where touring artists sell CDs - ultimately where the music industry starts and ends. But in an era of entertainment convenience, it's harder to draw a crowd than ever.
"Even myself I'm guilty of it," said Ms Simmonds.
"I want to sit and relax and watch Netflix. I'm guilty of it too and I've said to my partner, when this all finishes, we need to make sure we support things more so, because you never know what you've got till it's gone."
She said she hopes when society is allowed out of their homes people will go looking for a genuine live experience.
"We're actually sick of Netflix, we're sick of sitting on the couch. We're going to go out and see live music.
"I'm hoping that people will find a new-found respect for it and realise that it does cost money and it's not something you can just stream for free and not support."
Nobody knows when that day will be. Even as COVID-19 restrictions lift for restaurants and hotels many may not immediately open up to live music.
That ocean of opportunity will become a pond, at least for a while. But as the scene does open back up, Allison Forbes wonders what the new normal will bring. Her "biggest concern" is actually industrial relations.
"If venues get artists coming in saying that they will play for free or play for tips, I feel like it might end up like America and venues will go yes you can come and play but you're not going to get paid you're going to play for tips," she said.
"I feel like we sort of need to keep pretty strong front and not sell out our music for free, because venues probably will get an idea in their head that they never have to pay for an artist ever again.
"That's not something that we can really afford to do. The saddest part is that people are so desperate to play their music or desperate to get some financial support that they'll just go and play for nothing.
"The worst thing that we could possibly do is go and play for free. It will be a disaster, it'll be the end of the music industry in Australia as we know it."
But from her Alice Springs sojourn, Ms Forbes can't wait to get back in front of crowds.
"Live music is such a unique experience to go and be in the room and be present with someone that's playing music and to experience something magical musically with a whole bunch of other people - it's a really, really special thing.
"To not have that and not be able to go and see that it's pretty hard to stomach. I hate it, I hate not being able to see people play live.
"It's hard to replicate that experience of being in the room with someone who's doing something incredible. It's not the same when you're watching them sit in their bedroom in front of a camera kind of talking to themselves. It's a very strange thing."
