The holidays — they’re not for everyone, especially Erin McKeown, a Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter, who brings the F*ck That Anti-Holiday Spectacular tour to Eugene, Dec. 11 at The Hybrid Gallery.
Inspired by their disdain for the season — and let’s face it, there’s a lot to dislike, from crass commercialism, to in-your-face sentimentality, to good vibes only high expectations — McKeown first toured the Anti-Holiday Spectacular in the early 2010s, supporting the album F That! Erin McKeown’s Ant-Holiday Album, and revived it recently with new material, collected on FU Too! More Anti-Holiday Songs from Erin McKeown, released last year.
In the Christmas carol parodies and original songs, McKeown plays less the Grinchy spoilsport and more an amiable trauma-bonding tour guide, humanizing the worst of what the season has to offer on songs like “The 12 Crises of Christmas” and “Beautiful and Perfect (Home for the Holidays).”
Set to the melody of “O Come All Ye Faithful,” there’s also “Kamala Ye Faithful” about the last presidential election.
In the first half of the Anti-Holiday show, McKeown plays familiar tunes on piano and guitar from their extensive catalog, including 11 studio albums, tending toward folk-rock singer-songwriter material with an edge of ’90s alternative. If the mood strikes, McKeown takes requests.
Then, in the second part of the show, McKeown invites what they call their “cranky chorus,” audience members who agree to come on stage and back McKeown singing from their anti-holiday hymnal. The hymnal is on sale at the merch table for the rest of the crowd to join in.
Ugly Christmas sweaters and outfits are encouraged.
When McKeown started the Anti-Holiday show in the 2010s, “I was angry at Christmas and wounded from my childhood. It helped.”
Now, McKeown feels much the same way, but their views have softened with age. “Nothing makes me as upset anymore. Nothing is as important as it was. You age out of the outrage.”
Still, “when I came back and did shows last year after more than a decade of not doing the anti-holiday show,” McKeown says, “people appreciated it. We needed to laugh together and have a moment where we could take things a little more lightly.”
There is, of course, a contradiction in McKeown’s project: Regardless of how you feel about Christmas, getting together during the darkest time of year to share songs and tell stories, even if they’re from the misfit island frontlines, is, at best, what the holidays are about. “Totally,” McKeown agrees. “That’s one of the original aims of the project.”
The holidays, McKeown says, are so oppressive: “It’s like family family family, joy joy joy, and that’s just not true for everybody, and it might not be true for everybody every year. That pressure is not fair.”
Before Anti-Holiday, McKeown felt unseen and lonely in their angst. “It’s my nature to use humor to deal with things, but the root of it was very painful. In the show, I try to make a little space,” for people with similar views. And in doing so, “I really have enjoyed that camaraderie,” they say.
Erin McKeown’s F*ck That Anti-Holiday Spectacular is 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 11 at The Hybrid Gallery, 941 West 3rd Avenue. Tickets are $20. The concert is 21-plus.