Monday, June 29, 2020

The Full Recap On Mike Haggith's #LockdownLive "Quarterly Report"!!

As you may have bore witness to on Saturday, local/Thompson, Manitoba solo musician Mike Haggith hosted his 13th and final weekly #LockdownLive at-home concert on his Facebook page, before the series moves to a monthly format without a fixed schedule. With that said, let's spend today's post recapping it in full, as has recently been the case! The theme of #LockdownLive XIII was "The Quarterly Report", where Mike revisits and looks back on the initial 12 installments of the series, and with Brandan back in the live-stream comments, you know this will be fun! After discussing the origin of the series and it's evolution from a bored whim to a weekly event, he noted that he plans to perform his favourite song from each individual episode so far, with the fan-nominated cover at the end. After discussing the hour-long, theme-less #LockdownLive I from March, he plays his opening song from that night, "The Nature Of The Times" from his next CD "Bridges".

FYI, you can also hear that in #LockdownLive IV, which was themed around "Bridges" in full. After re-iterating the rules of the share contest for Saturday despite the now monthly format for the series, Mike calls frequent viewer Alexandra Parker to make the rules for the return of this week's fabled drinking game. Once the call ends, Mike revisits #LockdownLive II (which spotlighted the upcoming release of his newest album "If Ever Comes The Day"), from which he plays "MorningStar", which he also tackled in #LockdownLive I, V, VII , and VIII. Mike next looks back on #LockdownLive III, which was focused around his last local band The Din, and he plays their song "Missing", which also appeared in #LockdownLive I & VII. Next up is a look back at the aforementioned #LockdownLive IV, and Mike plays another "Bridges" cut, "From The 55th Parallel", which Mike noted will likely get a formal single release in advance of the album finally coming out.

Mike next dives into the covers-heavy #LockdownLive V, from which he covers Coldplay's "The Scientist", before looking at #LockdownLive VI, where he looked at his Sault Ste. Marie-era solo back catalogue. From that, he performed "Cowardly Hearts Beneath The Stars" from his 2014 album "A Place Of Our Own" again. We pass the halfway point by looking back on #LockdownLive VII, which doubled as the virtual release concert for "If Ever Comes The Day" (as filmed at a still-undisclosed secret locale), though Mike doesn't do a song from the album. Instead, he goes to a cover with a lot of personal resonance, Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", which was also heard in #LockdownLive IV-V and XI. Next was #LockdownLive VIII (themed "The Real Back Catalogue" with a focus on his Windsor-era albums), where he plays "Long Distance" from 2009's "The Curse Was The Cure".

The last third of "The Quarterly Report" begins with a call to Mike's old Din bandmate Brandan Glew, which is appointment listening enough! This prefaces Mike revisiting #LockdownLive IX, where he spotlighted musicians and songs he liked from here in Sault Ste. Marie, but rather than play favourites for a local act, Mike instead brings back the song Brandan nominated for winning the previous week's share contest, namely The Gourds' version of Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice", which was also in #LockdownLive XI (and yes, look for "Bob Dylan"!) Next, Mike looks back on #LockdownLive X, which spotlighted his mid-2010s local grunge/hard rock band Haggith, and he plays their old song "75", as previously heard on #LockdownLive III as well. Afterwards, Mike touches on #LockdownLive XI, which was themed around favourite covers he performed in prior episodes, and Mike brings back Prince & The Revolution's "Purple Rain", which debuted in #LockdownLive VII.

"The Quarterly Report" ends with #LockdownLive XII (themed around Mike's high school-era bands in Windsor), and he tackles The Thorns' 2010 original ""A Quarter Mile At A Time". As promised, Mike closes his set with his fan-mandated cover, as last week's winner Tianna Rice nominated him to cover The Jonas Brothers' relatively new song "What A Man Gotta Do", and yes, he puts on his legendary dragon onesie for the occasion. I will say this, Mike's cover is better than the original, and has a good folksy intensity! In the last few minutes, Mike outlines the complete metrics for hits, comments, and shares and such from the first 12 episodes, before outlining the growth of the #LockdownLive series, thanking everyone for the engagement, hyping the private group's afterparty that night, and reiterating the plans for the series now that it will only be held monthly, including the planned polls to pick the dates and themes.

Effective and entertaining way to end the #LockdownLive series' weekly era, and there were a lot of fun songs to recap for the occasion! I am slightly surprised by the amount of covers, but hey, they're songs Mike loves, after all! My big issue with episode #13 is that he took a little too much time outlining the metrics behind each individual video, but it is interesting to see what videos got the most and least engagement. Check out #LockdownLive XIII below, and stay tuned for our post-show coverage and more news & notes on the site later this week! Thanks everyone!


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