I suppose people don’t have Christmas album and show reviews in January, because everyone is done thinking about the holidays for another year. Well, if I don’t write the review now, I’ll forget what an impressive show I saw this year. Consider this a look into my storage closet where I’m putting away our Christmas decorations, and next November I’ll remember to take out this review and show you again so that you can catch this train.
It was hard to get a good view of the stage from the hill next to the Sturtevant train station platform, but above the crowd, I could see Kelly Prescott’s blonde head bouncing up and down to the rockabilly Christmas beat. Then I could see Willy Porter doing that same bounce next to her, a kind of in-place duck walk. Pat Flynn and Tracey Brown (Prescott’s mother) were finding that same energy. I couldn’t see drummer Ken Post, but I could only imagine that he was bouncing as he was laying down the rhythm.
That energy was truly a Christmas present as the entertainers of the 2006 Canadian Pacific Railway Holiday Train played for about 40 minutes on a cold, snowy night in Southeast Wisconsin. Annually, the Holiday Train makes it way on a Midwest route (and another in Canada) bringing a incredibly decorated train of lights, a rolling boxcar stage, performers, and most importantly, donations to local food banks.
Hundreds of people crowded the Sturtevant Amtrak station to see the train roll in. Sadly as we made our way towards the train (which had already arrived), people were already leaving. Apparently they thought that the brightly lit train was the show. What they missed was a tremendous performance from the Midwest train entertainers.
Pat Flynn’s Christmas originals are bluesy country songs that fully capture the true inspiration of the season. Willy Porter’s original “Christmas Is” a softshoe, whistling blues that keeps the love of Christmas alive (and just might make the best Beatles tie-in with the birth of Jesus I could imagine: “When I see your face,/Everything falls into place, my dear/…Everlasting love is here”). Prescott and Brown led the way on some traditional favorites, but there wasn’t a tired arrangement in the bunch. Prescott’s “Jingle Bells” captures current pop beats but sounds much more down to earth than any pop diva might dare to offer.
The Holiday Train CD/DVD allows you another chance to support the charities while having a way to keep some of the songs alive for another season. Plus, all of the 2006 performers are featured, including ones from the Canada and Midwest routes.
Producer Randall Prescott and the CPR have made the train a holiday destination for families, and the show was so beautifully focused on Christ, charity, and song. Santa was present, but he wasn’t the star by any means. With the entertainers’ choices of songs, the birth of Jesus was celebrated instead of relegated to a third-class seat in the luggage car. Yet, that focus on the first Christmas (especially in Flynn’s songs) plus other holiday songs never seemed like a push of old time religion. Instead, the energy that was so palpable when I first glimpsed Prescott’s hair bobbing up and down, the energy behind rock ‘n’ roll rockabilly, gave the whole message an air of welcome, invitation, charity, rejoicing at such a birth.
The angels went out and found the shepherds to tell them that the Christ was born in Bethlehem; it seems angels have also inspired the bards to sing as they come riding on the rails.
