The show will go on – Mike McGill is determined to have a ‘Spectacular’ Christmas, come COVID or high water

For attendees and performers of the annual “Mike McGill Christmas Spectacular,” we have good news, bad news and more good news.

The first good news: The annual holiday fundraising extravaganza, which features a litany of local musicians joining the country singer-songwriter for a Yuletide show to raise money for Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee, is moving from Barley’s Knoxville in the Old City to the beloved Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville.

But now the bad news: McGill and his motley crew of musical roustabouts won’t be playing Christmas songs from the Bijou stage until 2021.

But the final good news: There will be a “Spectacular” this year, livestreamed on Dec. 18. It’ll be McGill and a guitar, performing from a sound-equipment warehouse owned by “Big” Al Braden of Tri Star Audio and filmed by local drummer extraordinaire “Scuba” Steve Corrigan. But by God, there will be a show, McGill told BLANK Newspaper recently.

“When you’re playing with the guys and girls I normally do and you’ve got them and their superb talent and superb kindness to lean on, it’s easy,” McGill said. “Normally, what I have to worry about is the introduction, the segues, tying things together – the flow of the show. So in that regard, it’s not any different. But the other thing that makes the ‘Spectacular’ great is there ain’t nothing going through my brain except having fun.

“And that’s what will make it the same as previous years. The only thing I have to do is that I have to know the limitations of my talent and what I can do and can’t do, and I just have to have fun and not worry about it. If I blow a note or screw up, who cares? It’s Christmas, and you can’t screw up Christmas! Playing solo, you’re totally exposed, and you’ve just got to be OK with that – and I am.”

Sure, there’s some disappointment; after all, moving the annual shindig, which started out as an excuse to make merry with friends and fellow musicians, up to the Bijou has been a dream of McGill’s for a few years now, ever since the annual event became bigger than just one man’s desire to have a musical Christmas party with his buddies. Up until the beginning of December, the plan was to present it in the same way as previous “From the Bijou” performances: livestreamed, but with a limited live audience.

“They’ve been allowing 25 people in, and when we started talking about doing the ‘Spectacular’ there, they were hoping to let 50 in – and then of course the increasing COVID numbers threw a monkey wrench in all of that,” he said. “The more we talked, the more we realized, did the Bijou want their name – and did I really want my name – associated with trying to talk people into coming out in public and gathering after 10 months of being told to keep our distance and do essential things only?

“We’ve been on the same page the entire time, myself and the Bijou team, and I can’t say enough about [Bijou director of development] Courtney Bergmeier. Working with her, I felt quite confident we would make the right decision, and I feel like canceling it at the Bijou for this year is the right one. The good news is we have the same weekend for next year booked at the Bijou, so this show will get there at some point, somehow, someday, some way. It was very flattering of them to have the good faith in us to promise me that.”

Like so many of his fellow Americans, 2020 has been a rough one on McGill, who got his start playing bluegrass and gospel before working his way into the inner sanctum of the Knoxville scene, first in the Drunk Uncles and later as a solo artist and with the Barstool Romeos, the beer-drinking and hell-raising outfit he established with Andy Pirkle. “Mike McGill’s Christmas Spectacular” grew out of a 2012 showcase he put together in December of that year to mark the apocalypse – according to the Mayan calendar, at least, which got a lot of mileage in music and comedy circles that holiday season.

But the reaction was positive, and the showcase which featured McGill and friends was so well-attended that the managers of Barley’s asked him back. And it’s just grown ever since, with McGill and a house band of old friends playing holiday music – secular and religious, traditional and contemporary, serious and profane – while guests sit in on vocals and other instruments.

Moving on up to the Bijou, he added, would have meant even more money could have been raised for Second Harvest, and even after COVID-19 caused the fall of live performances, talks shifted to turning the “Spectacular” into one of the venue’s signature “Live From the Bijou” events, which would permit a limited number of live attendees but be livestreamed to those who could enjoy it digitally without leaving their homes. McGill’s been livestreaming himself playing solo since September, so he’s no stranger to digital entertainment.

“I’ve been doing a livestream for about the last two months, every other weekend, and we’ve had some success, considering what it is,” he said. “If we had a late [Tennessee football] game, we would do it at 5; if it was an earlier game, we did it at 7. For the 7 p.m. numbers, we’ve had as many as 1,500 views, and the 5 p.m. numbers have been as high as 500. It’s been pretty successful for just a guy and a guitar, especially since I didn’t even pick one up until September.

“You don’t have any audience feedback, so there’s no instant gratification from it. You can’t hear whether they’re laughing at your jokes through cyberspace, so that’s a little challenging, but I’ve gotten real comfortable with doing the livestream things.”

And thanks to Corrigan and Braden, who stepped in and offered the use of their downtown space and audio equipment, McGill doesn’t have to worry about anything except playing. Corrigan, a longtime contributor to the music scene, will be running video, and come Dec. 18, it’ll be the three of them, putting out a solo “Christmas Spectacular” to the East Tennessee friends, family members and fans who need all the cheer they can get. Those who wish to take part can find more information on McGill’s Facebook page, which will contain donation links to the Bijou – the secondary charity he’s earmarking funds for this year – as well as Second Harvest Food Bank, which he’s been honored to help out for years now.

“I just need some interaction, and you people do too,” he said. “The other thing to keep in mind is that it is what it is now because it’s for a cause that’s much greater than me scratching my itch to get up there and play. We’ve made enough money over the last several years to provide right at 20,000 meals for kids, but even today, even as COVID looms and we’re constantly thinking about it, there are still one out of six children going hungry in East Tennessee, and that’s a problem.”