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Dreaming of a white Christmas
Martina McBride at Tsongas Arena, plus Kenny Rogers in Manchester and more
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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You want a white Christmas? They don’t make ’em much whiter than Martina McBride. Think Reba with training wheels. Martina’s already sold out one sitting of her "Joy of Christmas" production, which reprises material from her 1998 holiday disc, at Tsongas Arena (978-848-6900) in Lowell on Friday night. (An early show the same day has been added for the overflow.) You have to work pretty hard to get whiter ’n Nashville, but that’s one job that no one’s ever accused the Gambler of laying down on. Kenny Rogers and Friends will be working overtime when they "Celebrate the Season" at the Verizon Wireless Arena (603-644-5000) in Manchester on Friday. What’s that, you say? Can’t get whiter than Kenny? You can, but only if you’re from New Zealand. We keep hoping for teenage light-classical pop-crossover songbird Hayley Westenra to get into some Hilary/Lindsay–type beef with Charlotte Church; and if she doesn’t, we’re gonna start instigating. (Hayley’s cuter! Hayley’s cuter!) Lessons in Transparent Marketing 101: her album’s called Pure (Decca). As the driven snow? And if you think that’s the ceiling for whiteness, consider this: she’s on tour singing Schubert’s Ave Maria and "The Little Drummer Boy" with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops! Tonight (December 16), they’re at Symphony Hall (617-266-1200) in Boston before taking flight for the Augusta Civic Center (207-626-2400) in Maine on Friday, the Arena at Harbor Yard (203-345-2300) in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Saturday, and the Worcester Centrum (508-755-6800) on Sunday. Flip the negative. Forgoing the light-classical pretensions of their Norwegian black-metal brethren, Satyricon kept the dank stank on their major-label debut, Volcano (released on System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian’s Sony-distributed Eat Ur Music imprint). Refusing to run up their production costs, they steered for the old Celtic Frost/Hellhammer entombed-in-a-dungeon decrepitude — and then splurged on stage blood and scepters and shit. How these guys got past Homeland Security this year (twice!) is beyond us, but they’re back for WAAF’s "Black Christmas" pageant on Saturday night at the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester, with Canadian horsemen of the Apocalypse 3 Inches of Blood. Elsewhere on the dark side, Valkyrie-riding doom-metal saviors High on Fire are at the Living Room (401-521-5200) in Providence on Saturday with the Chinese Stars. And pop-metalcore kids From Autumn to Ashes are at the Living Room on Monday and Toad’s Place (203-624-TOAD) in New Haven on Tuesday.
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