Mike Haggith's Fourth Live-Streamed Concert, Plus A New Cover Video!!

We've now passed six straight weeks of consecutive daily posts on the SMS during the pandemic, and hopefully we can stretch this into May! Today's post is largely devoted to a lengthy live-streamed concert from this weekend, but I do have a new cover from a separate solo artist to get to as well. There's a lot of ground to cover, so here's what you should know!

Local/Thompson, Manitoba alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith's fourth live-streamed #LockdownLive concert took place on his Facebook page on Saturday night, and this time, the focus of the first half of this 2½ hour video is on his other upcoming studio album "Bridges"! Before that, Mike did note in the introduction that he now as a PayPal "tip jar", so if you want to give Mike a few bucks for the performance or to help out while everyone's off work, keep that in mind! The set proper kicked off with a cover of Tears For Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", before he began discussing the events surrounding the songwriting and recording of "Bridges" in 2018 and early 2019, which is largely about mental health advocacy. Of course, that album was postponed indefinitely due to mixing delays and the personal events that led to his next CD (and the focus of #LockdownLive II), "If Ever Comes The Day", which will still be released on May 15th.

Mike noted that "Bridges" is "still on a mixing board somewhere", but he does hope to release that album by the end of the year. As you might expect from the theme, Mike performs the entire album in order here, with discussions about the songs in between, and some of these are making their public Facebook debut in the process! In order, Mike starts the "Bridges" portion by performing "From The 55th Parallel", "Over Indecision", "The Nature of The Times" (which was the first single & had an official music video), and "An Act of Strength", before reiterating "Bridges" release plans and confirming that he will be doing a live-streamed release concert (a'la A Dire Setback) for "If Ever Comes The Day" on Friday, May 15th. Sounds like a logical move, so look for that in a few weeks! The set continues afterwards with "The Catalyst", "Dangerous Town", "Come on Home", "Blue Highway", "Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost", and the title track, closing the "Bridges" portion of the evening.

Before moving on to non-album tracks, Mike revealed that #LockdownLive V this coming Saturday will be focused around cover songs that had a personal impact on Mike's life and songwriting, so look for that then! We also get to meet Mike's cat Luna, and that alone should get this video a ton of thumbs up and heart reactions on Facebook, and he also gave plans for a Letterkenny-style super soft birthday (look it up) during the postponed release concert on November 6th at LopLops. The set resumes with a cover of "Closure" by Auxillary Disconnect, a local alternative solo project led by Mike's friend Don Ibbitson (who is frequently seen in the comments.) I'm not familiar with Auxillary Disconnect, but Don's distinctively deep vocals add an extra layer to the three acoustic songs on offer! That's followed by a cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers In A Dangerous Time", as interrupted by Luna, leading to more talk about his cats, though Artemis does not make an appearance.

The live-stream closes with covers of The Din's "High Park" and his very jokey version of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird", before calling his cats one more time (even finding Artemis!) There was a lot to take in here, especially thanks to the irreverent back-and-forth with commenters, but the music was on point as usual, and if you like your live-streams peppered with debates on The Wiggles and the merits of Sault Ste. Marie, strap in! In this early stripped-down acoustic form, it's hard to comment on "Bridges" as a whole, but I can't wait to eventually hear the final product, so check it all out below!



We'll close today with another new cover video from local/Elliot Lake indie/punk solo project Ashoka At The Show, seen here covering Propagandhi's "Dear Coach's Corner" in yesterday's upload on the 184Films YouTube channel. I saw them live at The Oddfellows Hall, and an old friend used to be a huge fan of theirs (hope you're doing well, Kirsten), so I approve of this cover on principle! Darren does a solid job here with nice vocals, even if his guitar strings seem to be going wild, so give it a watch below!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for part 6 of our WLS0 9O.1 FM retrospective series on the site next! Thanks everyone!