1 Sept 2010

The Eastern Graphic, Montague, PEI

Former Beach Point man heads to LA after winning talent contest
By Jonathan Charlton

Canadians have chosen Kevin MacKay’s performance of his song “Peek-a-boo” as the winner of City TV’s Think You’ve Got Talent Canada? contest.
Mr MacKay, originally of Beach Point, now lives in Waterloo, Ontario with his wife Melissa and daughters Menita, 5, and Kaylee, nine months.
“I was really excited. It’s taken a long time for the results it was really cool to finally find out who won. And it was me, it was pretty crazy.”
The results were announced during a commercial break during last Tuesday’s broadcast of America’s Got Talent, which Mr MacKay watched with his family. “Everyone was pretty excited. My older daughter was excited to see herself on TV.” Almost instantly he started getting congratulatory emails and texts from friends.
The next morning Mr MacKay appeared on Breakfast Television in Toronto.
“It was a neat experience to see how they do the show live, just to be there in the studio, see it happen and actually be on the show.”
Mr MacKay said he was surprised he’d won.
“I guess deep down, yeah, in a way. I honestly thought one of the other ones would win it.” In particular, he thought a woman who sang a song about Canada or the beatboxing woman were more likely. “Peek-a-boo” is a solo acoustic song about a parent watching their children to grow up but also wanting them to stay the same.
“Looking back I think people related to my video, especially families and parents I think related to the kids and the words of the song.”
Now, he’s thinking about recording another CD. His 2005 debut album Something More received a nomination in Music PEI’s Spiritual Recording category. He has some songs in the works, so an album could come together relatively quickly. He’d also include traditional East Coast tunes.
“It’s pretty neat to be noticed in this way, it kind of tells me well maybe I should be looking at doing another CD as well. If people are responding to one song maybe they’ll respond to others as well.
“I used to get 20 hits a year for a song, now I’m getting, it’s not a lot but I get almost a thousand now for even the City TV news clips. Just the song video itself is more than 1200.”
Mr MacKay will bring his wife with him to the final show of the current season of America’s Got Talent, which was the prize of the contest. It’s Mr MacKay’s favourite show.
“I’m excited, I’ve never been to California before. And apparently there’s some kind of backstage passes for us, we’re just not sure what it entails, like if we get to meet the judges or not, we’re not sure. Hopefully I’ll get to meet them all.”
Mr MacKay is appreciative of all the support he got. Recently he’s been struggling to find work as a counsellor after receiving his Masters degree in June.
“I just want to thank everyone for the votes because I realize without the votes I would not get to go to LA.”

His winning video can be seen at kevinmackay.net.