For the love of Mike
It may be a little daunting to be the man behind one of the Knoxville music scene’s most beloved traditions.
“I’m a little bit overwhelmed with everything right now,” says longtime Knoxville singer-songwriter Mike McGill over the phone. “It’s a little daunting at times coordinating and getting it all together.”
McGill is planning his ninth Mike McGill Christmas Spectacular, an event that brings some of Knoxville’s musical favorites (and some surprise guests) onstage for one of the city’s most feel-good holiday shows and raises funds for Second Harvest Food Bank.
The guests for the 2021 show will surely feel familiar.
“I kinda went back to the O.G. crew,” says McGill.
The guests include Trisha Gene Brady, Brandon Fulson, Red Shoes & Rosin, Jay Clark and McGill’s partner in the Barstool Romeos, Andy Pirkle. All of the guests are veterans of the event.
“Those folks have always been close through the years,” says McGill. “I was always thinking it’s gotta be bigger and better, but it’s been two years [since the last live Spectacular]. Anything we do is gonna be big and great! I don’t want to take it so seriously that we lose the fun of it.”
Until 2020, the Spectacular had been presented at Barley’s in the Old City. However, the audience for the show has grown so much that the 2020 Spectacular was planned for the Bijou Theatre.
“The Bijou is where I saw it going after the success of that first year,” says McGill. “I loved Barley’s, but there’s something going on here that needs to be highlighted on more than a bar stage.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, though, forced McGill to simply livestream the event with no in-person audience and no special guests. The Bijou management went ahead and offered McGill a date for the 2021 show, anticipating the end of the pandemic. McGill says it meant a lot to him that the Bijou expressed such confidence in him and the show.
It seems like quite a challenge to pull together every year.
Guest performers for the show send in their song selections a few weeks before the event. The musicians learn the music, create a good arrangement, adapt to the singer’s key and have the song mapped out before the guest sets foot in the rehearsal space. Typically, the singer and musicians only run through the song a couple of times before the show.
“It’s the people you surround yourself with – their quality as musicians and individuals,” says McGill. “They make my job really easy. I couldn’t do anything without them.”
The band is: Barry “Po” Hannah, Nate Barrett, Daniel Shiflett and Matt Coker, with Red Shoes & Rosin (Jessica Watson, Shawna Cyphers and Meade Armstrong) on backing vocals.
“Every one of those people is a complete pro,” says McGill. “It’s like a NASCAR pit stop! They don’t waste much time. I talk to people and make them really feel at ease, and they know these guys have really got their backs.”
By the time the band goes onstage, they’re so prepared that the performance is just fun.
The show didn’t become a fundraiser until the third year. Since that time, the event has raised approximately $20,000 for Second Harvest Food Bank.
This year’s show has a $15 ticket, a jump from 2019’s $10.
“In nine years, we’ve only had two price increases, and it’s for such a good cause,” McGill says. “One hundred percent of the profit goes to Second Harvest.”
Since the pandemic isn’t entirely over, the show will go on with safety precautions. The Bijou’s capacity for the show will be 650, and pandemic protocols are expected to be in place so that patrons can feel safe getting together in a crowd. The Bijou will have a full staff on duty, including security.
Safety is particularly important to McGill right now. His father died during the pandemic (not from COVID), and his mother, for whom he is the caretaker, remains medically fragile. He says he’s planned trips to the grocery or hardware store at times when he can avoid crowds.
“If I was a business owner, I’d let people know I was doing everything I could to make them feel more comfortable. And if I was an audience member, I’d feel better knowing that everybody around me had been tested or had had the vaccine,” says McGill. “Everybody’s situation is unique, but we’re all in this together.”
Past Christmas bashes have included friends and fans getting “Santa” photos with McGill, who always wears a Santa suit during these performances.
“One of the biggest things is, I want to hug everybody, but should I? In a regular world without the ‘rona, we could come up with a plan. Now we just have to plan for the next best thing.”
The pandemic hasn’t been easy for musicians overall, but McGill was one of the town’s most-booked musicians and one of the few who made a full-time living from his music.
“I was doing 120 dates a year, plus all the concession stuff I was doing,” he says. “I could work eight months and then take three months off if I wanted. I wasn’t Daddy Warbucks or anything, but I wasn’t missing any meals.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, McGill has performed only twice for a live audience: once when the “6 O’Clock Swerve” returned to live shows earlier this year and once at Trailhead Beer Market. Both shows were packed.
“I was a man of the people, and I miss it!” he says.
McGill is happy that his next big event will be one that raises money for something he cares about.
“There are kids in the Knox County area who are still going hungry … and Second Harvest does a really good job. Ultimately, I wouldn’t mind having two or three of these [fundraisers] a year if there’s something we can all get behind that is noteworthy and worthwhile.”
The Mike McGill Christmas Spectacular will be presented at 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, at the Bijou Theatre. Tickets are $15, general admission, and are available at www.knoxbijou.com.
