The Full Story On Mike Haggith's #LockdownLive V: The Cover Story!!

Single topic post today, as the fifth installment of local/Thompson, Manitoba solo musician Mike Haggith's #LockdownLive at-home concert series was streamed on his Facebook page on Saturday night, and this time, the show runs for 2 hours and 45 minutes! As previously announced, #LockdownFive is themed around covers of songs that have affected and inspired Mike's life and music in the past (plus four originals), complete with a dedicated setlist, so if you are hoping to hear viewer requests, this isn't the installment for you. Mike arranged his set in loose chronological order throughout his life, and uniquely, he didn't introduce songs by name, instead turning this into a game for viewers, where correctly guessing the most song names would get you a free autographed copy of "If Ever Comes The Day" on CD. There's an interesting angle! The live-stream has come and gone, so we can safely reveal the song names without ruining the game as it took place.

I won't detail the entire narrative here (Mike tells his life story way better than I ever could), but he starts by talking about his childhood & teenage years in Windsor, and songs that left an impression on him at the time, leading into performances of Stephen Stills' "Love The One You're With", Sarah MacLachlan's "Possession", The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps", and Coldplay's "The Scientist". The next section deals with when he moved to Sault Ste. Marie for college and his early time living here, which reflects on his first original song of the evening, the 12 minute long "To Kansas: The Ballad Of K4/K5" from 2014's "A Place Of Our Own", which no viewers correctly guessed. Much of the next dialogue revolves around personal events in Mike's life in the mid-2010s, leading to his cover of Metric's "Synthetica". The beginnings of the modern-day Din prefaced his rendition of defunct local post-punk quartet Gnaeus' original song "Lovers", which was super surprising to see Mike tackle!

Mike acknowledged how impressed he was them and how they encouraged him to step up his musical game, so despite their relatively short life, that's a huge endorsement of Gnaeus' talents! The next cover was Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)", which Mike acknowledged a subpar rendition of with The Din at The Canadian, before going into two popular live covers of theirs, The Foo Fighters' "Times Like These" and The Barenaked Ladies' "The Old Apartment". The next section of "#LockdownLive V: The Cover Story" deals with Mike's time living in Thompson since the end of 2017, starting with The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night", a song Mike covered there with his band Between The Ditches. The personal events from his Soo trip in August 2019 recur next, as Mike covers Tears For Fears' "Shout" and then plays his own song "The Best You Never Had" from "If Ever Comes The Day".

Mike next tackles Daniel Johnston's "Some Things Last A Long Time" and another new album cut, "Into The Setting Sun" (which wasn't guessed either), before coming full circle by covering a song that's stuck with him his entire life, namely Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" and an original song it inspired, "2145" from the new CD. This ended "the cover story", with Re:Born frontwoman Elly McWatters winning the song naming contest (congrats!), but the video continues another 20 minutes with bonus off-the-cuff songs, including The Killers' "When We Were Young", The Gin Blossoms' "Hey Jealousy", and one more cut from "If Ever Comes The Day", namely "Morningstar". These #LockdownLive shows are getting progressively longer, but they are fun to watch, and if you don't know Mike well, this is a good introduction into his background and musical development! The structured nature was obvious to a point, but comments from live fans added levity.

Mike's former Din bandmate Brandan Glew (a frequent point of humour in these) suggested that #LockdownLive VI could be about Mike's back catalog, and while he didn't confirm that immediately, he noted that it was a good idea. Might that be on Saturday, or is another theme afoot? Time will tell, but Mike's definitely enjoying these weekly live-streams, and hopefully we get plenty more of these until things start slowly getting back to normal! Give the whole concert a watch below, and stay tuned for the last installment of our WLS0 9O.1 FM retrospective series tomorrow! Thanks everyone!