NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — On Christmas Eve last year, singer and 2nd Avenue resident Buck McCoy had no clue what the following 24 hours would hold. “In my mind I was going to be waking up and going to the Redneck Riviera to play on Christmas morning,” he said, "and in the instant everything changed.”
McCoy woke up on the morning of December 25, 2020 and looked outside his window. "I heard the recording but I didn’t know what he was saying, it was too far away."
That recording came from an RV belonging to Anthony Warner.
“So I went back to bed, I was sleeping and that’s when just everything came apart," said McCoy. "The whole apartment just seemed to collapse on us.”
It was the Christmas morning explosion heard across Nashville and across the country.
McCoy said, “it was almost like a dream, like ‘Is this really happening? Am I going to be able to wake up here in a second and it’s going to be over?’”
As McCoy ran outside, he grabbed his phone and started filming.
Eventually, he found shelter at a nearby friend’s home, but it was just the start of a long road to healing. “The first three months were very difficult trying to get the hearing back, trying to get the feelings back- you know- that I wanted to play, that I wanted to go out and have a good time,” he said.
Now, as McCoy returns to 2nd Avenue a year later, he looks back with gratitude and looks forward to what’s next.
“You can always look at it and say ‘I came out better than somebody else’,” he said. “This is going to be a great Christmas this year. It’s going to be much better than last Christmas.”
