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Live performance hasn't gone away. I live outside a village (in Ireland) with around 1000 residents and there's live music in one or other of the pubs 4 nights (or more) a week

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Irish trad scene is unique in this regard. There are Irish trad sessions everywhere in the world (I was able to visit some in quite faraway places like Moscow, Istanbul or Santiago de Chile), and in Ireland there are a few in every village, and then some.

But that's just it, Irish trad. Frenchies have something similar with balfolk, but not so epic, and while there are other strong European folk scenes, none of them is on the scale of Irish trad. Alas.

Source: I play jigs and reels for fun.

It's not just trad though really - there's a bit of trad (and a fair few ballads) in my local pub but you could also hear pretty much any popular song from the last 50 years.

(... for anyone who's curious - "trad" usually means traditional dance music like jigs and reels, "ballads" mostly means Irish-y sounding songs sung in English)

Although circleofavshape's observation applies equally well to my part of the US. Even very tiny towns around here have live music multiple nights per week.

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