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For some, five barenaked ladies would be the best Christmas present ever.
Those people would have been very disappointed if they were at the MTS Centre last night since the gift might not have been exactly what they were expecting.
For the 4,000 people who were at the arena though, Toronto pop group the Barenaked Ladies were a last-minute holiday treat, adding some extra flavour to the season — something like the equivalent of rum in egg nog.
The quintet were in town on the last date of their month-long Barenaked for the Holidays tour, spreading their goofy brand of cheer with a mixture of Christmas and Hanukkah songs, along with some BNL favourites.
The stage was decorated like the set of a television holiday special with a fake fireplace, stockings hanging from the chimney (with care), a door for visitors and, of course, a giant Christmas tree.
They even had their own choir.
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Before the Ladies took the stage, Grade 4 and 5 student choir, The Choraliers from the Pembina Trails School Division, gave the show a pageant-like feel. They sang two songs on their own before being joined by BNL for acoustic versions of I Saw Three Kings, Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, with Ed Robertson on guitar, keyboardist Kevin Hearn on mandolin and Jim Creeggan on bass.
Vocalist-guitarist Steven Page is the only Jewish member of the group but he sang along on the Christmas carols, and so his bandmates joined him for the Hanukkah songs.
When the choir left, the group huddled around one microphone, where drummer Tyler Stewart showed off his scatting and tap dancing skills before a subdued version of Jane, the touching ballad off 1994’s Maybe You Should Drive.
The band then plugged in for Pinch Me and a cover of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, which ended in a snippet of Boyz II Men’s End of the Road, sung a cappella by all band members. They then mocked the song and the need for vocal groups to fill every second of their songs with some sort of singing, no matter how unnecessary.
I’ll give a Hallelujah to that.
From there it was a few BNL songs here, some holiday songs there and much comedy improv in between.
The whole group are multi-instrumentalists, so they drew names from a Santa hat to change things up, with Robertson switching to drums, Page to bass, Creeggan to keys, Hearn to guitar and Stewart taking over vocals for a version of Felice Navidad.
The gimmick was just part of the laid-back good-time feel the whole show had. Whether their egg nog was spiked or whether they were just happy it was the final night of the tour, the band were in a great mood and that feeling was shared by the audience who received everything warmly, even Stewart’s prediction it would be “freezing outside” when the show was over.
It must have been the holiday spirit that prevented a chorus of boos.