
Photos by Ray Williams and Review by Darlene Altmann
On the eve of the world ending, Jason McCoy took to the stage in Hamilton for his solo ‘The Perfect Gift Christmas Tour” that kicked off in Campbell River, BC, on Nov. 21 and winds up Dec. 23 in Clarksburg, ON.
The Perfect Gift promises fans a “unique and interactive” concert experience with Jason offering an up-close and personal acoustic performance.
While it is, strictly speaking, a one-man show, several special guests do in fact—through the power of technology—join McCoy as he performs.
The Show started with opening act Chelsea Crites with her acoustic version of Blown Away and ended her set with her new track with “If your hearts not in it.”
I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun I had at the Jason McCoy’s concert. I’ve seen Jason a handful of times performing with the Road Hammers, but have never seen him perform as a solo artist. The performance was both entertaining and funny!
The first song he sang was the country classic “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” by the JEFF DANIELS BAND, with an animated video on a huge screen behind him! How cool is that? Since there were no drums, Jason encouraged the audience to clap along to the entire song!
This was an acoustic fun little show with 2 sets; the first set being country tunes with some Road Hammers tunes mixed in, and 2nd set old fashioned Christmas carols. This was his first solo Christmas tour. He sang his hit SHE’S GOOD FOR ME, with videos of his 2 kids and wife in the background. He was very interactive with the audience and is a joker. He said that he spends most of his time in Nashville, but the best country artists come from Canada. He then talked about his life and mentioned that he was married for 13 years.
The girl’s hockey team, the Ryerson Rams were in the audience wearing their jerseys and Christmas gear. He then said that George Canyon was a great friend and fellow Canadian country singer and cracked a joke about hi “big chin.” Of course George was live on satellite listening to every word! The audience just howled with laughter! The both dazzled the audience singing the Glen Campbell classic “Like A Rhinestone Cowboy,” as a duet. This is one of my favorite songs and I was dancing and singing from my chair!
Jason loves traditional country music as it always portrays a story. He sang the crowd favorite “East BOUND AND DOWN,” for all the Road Hammers groupies! He then showed a video of himself dancing and lip singing to GANGMAN STYLE. Jason is both humble and humorous, but also has a serious side. He brought World Vision along on the tour. Jason said that he fell in love with what they do. On the screen he showed us a picture of the two children that his family sponsors, picked out by his daughter. Of course he sang his big hit Dixieland which showed a younger Jason on screen with Amanda Wilkinson from The Small Town Pistols who was singing backup.
Set 2, he sang all the Christmas classics such as Winter Wonderland and he got the whole audience to join in. Terri Clark from satellite wished everyone a Merry Christmas while Jason called her the “country Martha Stewart.”
KX 94.7 had a contest called Caroling with McCoy. Michelle Cormier was the winner and she took to the stage to sing a duet of “Let It Snow.” What an amazing set of vocals. Afterwards Jason presented her with an Epiphone guitar. The ladies hockey team came up to help Jason sing a humorous version of “The 12 Days Of Christmas,” with audience participation. He then sang the old Christmas classics “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty The Snowman with old footage of the original TV shows in the background! His last song was “Joy to the World.” The audience started yelling “encore!” Jason came back out to sing a few Johnny Cash tunes, and one of his favorite tunes from Ray Charles, ‘You don’t know me.” He then ended with “Silent Night,” with a single flickering candle in the background to end the almost 3 hour performance.