Dave Berry pulled down two planks from his backyard fence because the show must go on.

Berry and his back-fence neighbor and fellow bluegrass musician, Paul Griffiths, got together the other night for a concert that could only happen in the spring of 2020.

Berry stood in his backyard, near San Francisco’s Precita Park, on one side of the fence. Griffiths stood in his backyard on the other side of the fence, and the two friends played a 45-minute set on Facebook Live.

The camera was in Griffiths’ backyard, so Berry had to position himself so his face and mandolin could be seen through the hole made by the two missing planks. Camera angles are everything in showbiz. It took some rehearsing to get it right.

“At first we took just one board out of the fence, but the hole wasn’t big enough, and I couldn’t see what Paul was doing,” Berry said, “so we had to take out the second board.”

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The two friends played “I Still Miss Someone” and “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,” and both musicians tried mightily to ignore how weird it was. But at one point, Griffiths wandered a little too close to the hole. Then he jumped back, because 6 feet is 6 feet, with or without a fence.

“I can’t get any closer to you, Dave,” Griffiths said.

The concert was free, but listeners were encouraged to contribute a few bucks online to Charlie’s Cafe, a music hangout across the street from Precita Park where the proprietor is passing any contributions to his laid-off staff.

A GoFundMe campaign has raised nearly $11,000 for the neighborhood spot, so far. The group hopes to raise $13,000 per month for the next three months.

Gerbil art gallery: With nothing else to do and a lot of time to do it, a pair of London artists created a miniature art gallery for their pet gerbils.

Then they posted a video of the two rodents scampering through the painstakingly crafted gallery chamber. Fifty thousand people, also with nothing else to do, have seen it.

In the video, the two gerbils — Pandoro and Tiramisu — appear to be having a fine time racing past tiny framed paintings inspired by Vermeer and Munch. Then, the gerbils chew miniature furniture and leave no fewer than seven gerbil calling cards.

Artists Filippo Lorenzin and Marianna Benetti left those parts in the video, apparently in the interest of free expression.

Purple unity at S.F. hotel: Why was San Francisco’s Hotel Nikko purple on Friday? To honor the hospitality industry, which claims the color as its official hue.

That’s the word from the hotel’s general manager and vice president, Anna Marie Presutti, who sent out a statement in support of the industry’s workers.

“The hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Presutti said in the release. “We wanted to shine a light to show our support and solidarity for our colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. We will certainly get through this together and come out stronger than ever.”

The industry has also received purple props from San Francisco City Hall, Coit Tower, San Francisco International Airport, Oracle Park and Winchester Mystery House, according to the release.

On Easter Sunday, a group of Hotel Nikko executives handed out food and supplies to members of the staff, who drove up to the front doors and had the much-needed provisions loaded into their trunks.

The hotel remains open for business, offering grab-and-go breakfasts, in-room dining and hand sanitizers throughout the property.

Steve Rubenstein is a staff writer for The San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com

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