On November 21st, Trace Adkins brought the Christmas spirit via his Christmas show to the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) for the last of his three New England appearances with his Christmas tour featuring the songs off of his 2013 Celtic inspired Christmas album, ‘A Kings Gift.’ Trace is a household name to the country music fanbase for over a decade, but his intimate show in the immaculate hall revealed a different side of the man that released hits like ‘Hot Mama’ and ‘Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk.’
The lights came down revealing a stage set that was unfamiliar to say the least: Christmas trees and wrapped presents took the place of guitar amplifiers, and a fireplace and leather recliner replacing a bass drum and mic stand. Trace came on stage donning a themed velvet jacket and in his familiar black cowboy hat to the Christmas classic ‘The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire),’ and upon finishing the song gave a grin and told the crowd, “Two things that shouldn’t go together, beautiful Christmas carols and the guy that brought you ‘Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk.'”
Photo credit: Mark Weiss.
Trace went into the story behind his album ‘A Kings Gift,’ saying that for years and years he was asked to do a Christmas album, but he didn’t want to do an album full of carols. One day while in Nashville he was in the studio, and The Chieftains were in town performing. The Chieftains are an Irish band out of Dublin, with roots stretching as far back as the early 1960’s. After some collaborating, Trace decided it was time to do his Christmas album, and theme it after the traditional Celtic songs.
Along with female singer Alyth McCormack, known for her beautiful Celtic vocals and work with the Chieftains, He played tracks from the album ‘Oh Come Oh Come Immaculate,’ ‘Away in a Manger,’ ‘What Child is This,’ and the first Christmas song he wrote or recorded, ‘We Three Kings.’ He told us what an honor it was to record a song with The Chieftains, and performed the song ‘I Saw Three Ships.’ McCormack had spent time working with Trace on select shows on his prior Christmas tours, but was on full time for the 2014 tour. You could tell that they both enjoyed each others presence together on the stage, and built off of each other.
Photo credit: Mark Weiss.
Trace closed out his set with familiar songs ‘Silent Night,’ ‘Oh Holy Night,’ ‘Oh Tannenbaum,’ and ‘Little Drummer boy,’ and his encore of ‘Dreaming of a White Christmas.’ I for one was pleasantly surprised with how beautiful his performance was, going much deeper than a tradition concert, with layers of different backdrops, backround singers speaking in Celtic, and a string quartet, or as Trace likes to say, “A bunch of girls with some fiddles.” He bowed and thanked the audience, and not a single person could sit leaving him with a standing ovation.