Gill Henry Durant’s hip hop/R&B Christmas novelty tunes are weirdly catchy. I have the record on my iPod and it’s somewhat annoying when a tune pops up mid-summer and I can’t stop singing about Christmas on the docks, or “You’re my candy cane, you’re so sweet.” Fortunately, the show only comes around every Christmas because the hooks won’t let go for days.
This year, I opted for the Midway show. It had been less crowded than the beyond-capacity 97 Estoria show last year (or was it the year before? These are starting to blur together.) Things opened up with a band I can’t seem to locate on Google – Muff Lords? There is a band called Mufflers, but that’s not them.
Sort of progrock, jammy stuff that wasn’t bad. Everyone in the audience seemed content to ignore them and chat, waiting on the headline act. Muff Lords tossed out covers of Hava Nagila and Feliz Navidad to get folks in the spirit.
Eventually, Gill Henry Durant and company assembled on the stage and things got wound up.
If you enjoy Christmas but you’re sick of the same old Christmas tunes, or bad covers of them by modern artists, you should pick up this CD. It’s comical, yes, but it also has a heart. This is not music for Scrooges.
Live, you get the bonus of backup dancers, gifts tossed into the crowd, the occasional cross-country-skiing-inspired choreography, and even a cameo by Jesus.
They even had a new song or two in the mix. My only complaint was about the crowd. It was packed with people that were more interested in saying they’d been there than actually paying any attention to the show. If they have this next year in the parking lot at Estoria, that might be the better option.
Hope everyone gets what they deserve for Christmas, regardless of what they want.
See y’all in 2013!
