A few weeks ago, clubs, festivals, raves across the country would be full of thousands of dancers giving expression to human movement to the pulsating beat and throbbing bass of soulful house, techno, funk, jazz, electro, booty, hip hop ... but things have changed.

The English ska band The Specials sang: "This town is 'coming like a ghost town. All the clubs have been closed down." That line could be a haunting refrain for our times - a lockdown anthem.

The volume had been turned to zero on the night life of cities. The venues are on pause. Necessity flicked the switch, and the young people went home.

But the kids are alright! The generation that has made a lifestyle out of digital technology and social media is somewhat inadvertently prepared for the big lockdown, in fact, they've been preparing for it for years.

A range of digital technologies has allowed for musicians, bands and dance music DJs to produce high-quality product on their laptops, store it on sites like Bandcamp and stream it to listeners as they self-promote through social media.

The clubs are closed but cyber space is always open.

Despite the dystopian suspicions surrounding social media and new technologies, it's the digital device's ability to transcend time and space that offers the social-distancing culture a pretty consistent and engaging stream of live entertainment.

For celebrated electronic music DJ Simon Caldwell, who commands a cult following at Sydney dance clubs, the Easter weekend would have normally been an intensely busy period.

He could have been creating the feel at any number of city dance venues including at Marrickville's Mad Racket where he has been performing for 20 years, or showcasing his talents at a now cancelled festival like Inavanika where a couple of thousand people would have danced all through the weekend.

But the shutdown of clubs and festivals has him now focusing more on live streaming to cater for the COVID-19 environment.

On weekends he is one of the Mince TV DJs, a program that is streaming dance music on the internet to a growing and now hungrier audience.

"Social media is what you make of it," Caldwell says.

"I think live streaming music will help people stay somewhat connected in this time, take their minds off the fact that they're sitting in their homes.

"Programs like Mince are bringing the dance floor into people's bedrooms,"

They may be dancing in very small rooms and in even smaller numbers, or just dancing with their shadow, but DJs like Caldwell are shaping their sets to take into account the changed environment.

"If you're playing to a full club you take a bit of a reading of the crowd. It's more of a two-way process and you assess what's happening on the dance floor, figuring out what's working better than other things and then tailoring it on the spot. It's a fairly intuitive process.

"But because the live stream is produced in an empty club, I'm much more prepared to spend time planning the set, because I know there will be nothing to feed back off. It's a different context. I get a bit busier on the mix. I feel that when people are at home I should try to make it more interesting."

The pandemic's damage to businesses and families is relatively tangible and quantifiable, but the damage to our culture, and particularly our youth culture, is harder to gauge.

Will there be a return to normal or will our entertainment culture and its social connections evolve in a new direction for a new tomorrow?

In the meantime, down the lights, turn the music up, face the lockdown and dance.

Let's be clear about this. Electronic music DJs don't just play music, they mix it live, incorporating different sources of music simultaneously in a jam that is partly scripted and partly spontaneous.

Simon Caldwell explains...

"I play mainly vinyl, but I might incorporate a bit of digital over the top so there could be three sources playing at one time. I might use some acapellas or some borrowed sound, and then I'm using EQ and effects on different channels to make the mix work better. Sometimes I do a bit of live sampling, play a snippet of something and then I might repeat it... bring it in, take it back, bring it in again."