B3 Kings’ Christmas concert a treat
REVIEW — Kamloops is starting to feel like home to the B3 Kings — Friday night was their fourth Christmas concert here in four years, and, for the fourth year, it was a full house.
B3 Kings at St. Andrew’s on Friday night.
There’s a reason for that. Christmas albums and Christmas concerts can range from ho-hum to nothing-new-there to yawn-inspiring. Too often, they’re the same old regurgitated carols performed by musicians struggling to sound different and failing.
But the B3 Kings blend carols with Christmas pop and oldies but goodies and put a totally new sound on them all.
Cory Weeds on tenor sax, Bill Boon on guitar, Chris Gestrin on organ and Denzai Sinclaire on drums and vocals tap into everything from Sinatra and Nat King Cole classics to a host of traditionals in their arrangements.
We Three Kings, Joy to the World, White Christmas, Silent Night and Winter Wonderland were all there, plus a beautiful rendition of Little Drummer Boy. But the Sinatra song Christmas Dreaming (also recorded by Harry Connick Jr.), and Nat King Cole’s A Train Out of Dreamland and the 1946 favourite Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire made this concert truly special.
Everybody from Justin Bieber to Paul McCartney has recorded Chestnuts, but none does it better than Denzai Sinclaire, whose mellow baritone is the very embodiment of Cole.
Ray Nyuli of Entertainment Management keeps bringing these small and medium concerts to Kamloops, like last summer’s outdoor Quartette concert with Sylvia Tyson at Tranquille Farm, and they’re a treat. He said Friday night he could have sold double the 150 seats in the St. Andrew’s on the Square venue if there had been a bigger room available.
He’s had to turn down several concerts in the past year due to lack of space. “If anybody tries to tell you we don’t need more performing arts space in Kamloops, they’re wrong.”
Can’t argue with him there, but St. Andrew’s, with its excellent acoustics, intimate space and its history, seemed a perfect complement to the B3 Kings Christmas tribute.
— Mel Rothenburger
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Dear Mel;
You should’ve written the review (based on past performance) a week ago. It is hard to know which event not worth missing.
On another note, we need way more than 150 x 2 tickets sold to fully justify a costly performance art center.
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