If you live in New York City — or follow anyone in NY on various social media platforms — you will already be well aware of the ongoing COVID-19 / Omicron spike in that region. There were a record number of new cases in a day reported in the state today. As a result, many NYC-based venues (Baby’s All Right, Union Pool) have cancelled shows scheduled to go on this weekend, while others have started requiring masks indoors (Saint Vitus). LCD Soundsystem, who are currently playing a residency at Brooklyn Steel, have announced that they will not be cancelling their remaining shows (as of now, they are scheduled to play through the 21st).

“We’re playing tonight,” began the band’s post on social media. Here is the rest of the band’s statement:

We’ve had a lot of discussions and stress about this amongst ourselves, and we’ve decided to play tonight. But we feel like we have to make some things clear here, so we’re writing this out to whomever is planning on seeing us.

For starters, we’ve all known the risks playing these shows. When we planned them, we thought we’d be in better shape, COVID-wise, by now, but it didn’t pan out, so we’ve been in a bubble together for months, our families, our crew. But we play in a room of thousands every night, so we know there are risks. We know that we and our team (and the team at Brooklyn Steel), in many ways, face the most risk of getting sick, just by virtue of being at every one of our 20 shows.

But we said we would play, and people are coming, so we are playing.

But let’s be very, very clear — we are not saying by playing that we think it’s not a place you can catch COVID or anything else, really. It’s becoming clear that more and more people use soft data like “see? This sports team is still playing in front of fans!” To assess whether something is risky or not. I get it, but that seems nuts. Us playing the show is in no way an indicator that it’s safe to attend.

Yesterday, we all got to the venue and talked about cancelling. I was almost sure we would. But it seemed very last minute. We talked about asking/requiring guests to wear masks (which we did, to very little effect). We talked about how people were going to get very, very angry at us regardless of what we did. We learned that almost 50% of the tickets bought were from out of town, so there are people who’ve traveled, booked hotels, etc., to see us. They would likely be very, very irate if we cancelled all of the sudden. There are people who will be angry at us for playing as well.

So here’s what we’ve decided:

You need to make your own decision as to whether you feel safe coming to see us. If you don’t, you can go to axs.com to get your money back. You’ll be first in line for tickets the next time we play in NYC. We won’t hold your money, or reschedule… You just get first crack next time there’s a gig.

If enough people want to cancel, we’ll cancel the shows and refund everything, putting you next in line as well.

It’s the best we can come up with.

According to local news, the percentage of positive COVID tests in NYC spiked from 3.9% to 7.8% from December 9 to 12.

Read the band’s full statement below.