A Hamilton holiday staple

JR Digs has created a heartfelt Christmas show that brings together the city’s musical powerhouses for a fundraising show that simply aims to do some good.

Let’s get one thing straight. The JR Digs Acoustic Christmas concert, which returns for the 17th time on Dec. 23, is not really acoustic at all.

Oh, there will be musicians strumming un-electrified guitars on stage at the Music Hall. 

But anyone who heard Luke Bentham and Kyle Fisher of local punk heroes the Dirty Nil teaming up with Dave Baksh and Jason “Cone” McCaslin from Sum 41 the past two years, or transplanted maritimers The Trews rocking out as the de facto house band, or special guests The Beaches blowing the roof off understands that somewhere along the way, somebody turned up the volume.

But no one is demanding truth-in-advertising. The tickets will sell out in a heartbeat once more and the hall will be packed with folks who have fallen in love with the evening’s unique vibe, when for one night it feels like the city has been shrunk to a small town – one with a great big beating heart.

The Hamilton holiday staple is founded, fronted and inspired by the inimitable Digs, and features both homegrown talent and musicians who have moved to Hamilton in recent years. 

The regulars include Tom Wilson, Max Kerman and Mike DeAngelis from Arkells, the aforementioned Trews, Tyler Kyte and Champagne James Robertson from Dwayne Gretzky and country star Tim Hicks. They are joined each year by a surprise guest or two, their identity revealed only when they take the stage – a list that has included Randy Bachman, JulyTalk, Brett Emmons from The Glorious Sons, Gord Sinclair from The Tragically Hip and last year Brad Roberts from Crash Test Dummies.

Persuading musicians to turn up and play for free two nights before Christmas isn’t the easiest thing. Persuading a whole supporting cast, from sound crew to accountants to a security team to a large cadre of volunteers to give up their time and provide everything necessary to stage a full-on concert would seem a near-impossible task.

No one involved gets paid. And every dollar raised through the concert and the separate, elaborate after-party which follows – last year, the number was $360,000 – goes directly to a host of local charities. 

The common denominator is Digs, the great persuader, whose manic spirit can’t conceal the fact that he’s a force for good.

It all began back in 2009, when he was riding high with his late-night TV show, Man in a Van, and was invited to attend a fundraising event.

“I’m that guy who says all the right things and seems like he cares but really I was just bee-lining my way to the bar,” he says. “And I caught myself. That’s not who I think I am. But either you are something, or you are not.”

Intent on turning good intentions into action, Digs approached Brodie Schwendiman, the proprietor of local music institution The Casbah and asked about using the venue for a benefit concert.

The main room was fully booked. The only space available was the tiny, downstairs Casbah Lounge, which on a good day holds about 60 people. And the only date open was Dec. 23, which seemed awfully close to Christmas.

In terms of the actual show, Digs didn’t really have much of a plan.

“I was going to sell some tickets and strum some chords and sing some camp songs that I knew and try to raise some money.”

Which would have been fine, save for the fact that Digs couldn’t really play the guitar.

“I ran into Tom Wilson and told him I was doing this thing and asked him if he had any time to teach me a G chord,” Digs says. “Tom looked at me and said I’d rather show up and do it myself than try to teach a dummy like you.”

The place was filled that night to hear Tom Wilson and Tomi Swick and Mike Trebilcock, and also to experience Digs as the host – a very large personality in a very small space.

The next year, Kerman asked to be added to the bill, and the show once again sold out.

As demand increased, the venue shifted – to the main room at The Casbah, to the Leander Boat Club, and to a local film studio before settling into what feels like its natural home, the 1,000-seat Music Hall, which may be better known by its former incarnation as New Vision United Church. It is big enough to handle the crowd but still small enough to create a sense that the audience is part of a very exclusive club. 

Things were humming along until 2020, the show getting bigger and better every year, when COVID threw up a roadblock.

That first pandemic Christmas, Digs managed to pull together a virtual show including performances filmed inside the empty Music Hall. A year later, plans were well underway for a live show when the virus surged, the province was once again shut down, and the concert had to be cancelled.

In 2022, everything was finally in place for a triumphant return to normal. But a wild winter ice storm the day of the concert forced a last-minute postponement. Remarkably, all of the acts (aside from the surprise guest…) and all of the volunteers agreed to do the show on Dec. 28. That’s also when the guys from Sum 41 stepped in – they’ve now become regulars.

But one JR Digs tradition didn’t survive the pandemic.

As his penultimate act of the night, just before joining the musicians en masse for the grand finale, Digs passed the hat – literally, his Santa hat – and then dashed out into the streets of downtown with a fistful of bills, which he distributed to anyone he might encounter who looked like they could use a helping hand. (And yes, it was suggested to him that walking the streets of downtown with a great big visible wad of cash might not be the best idea.)

With the gift came a simple request: Use it to do something good for yourself or for somebody else.

This year, the tradition will return, not on the night of but the day before, using cash donated the last two years. As Digs explains it, the gesture speaks to the show’s raison d’etre.

“One year when I did it, I ran into this young guy who said that he wouldn’t take the money. He said he’d do the wrong thing with it – he was implying that he was going to buy drugs or something.

“I remember thinking, it’s not up to me to judge how or where he spends it. Maybe the money is more than just money. When was the last time anyone asked that guy to do something good? Maybe it changed his life. Sometimes people just give up on people. All I said was, ‘I really want you to do something good with it.’ I gave him the money. And maybe he did.”