On December 10th, Zach and I were looking forward to our first visit to Carnegie Hall, and I could not have been more excited about the performance!"The McGarrigle Christmas Hour" The tickets were our Christmas presents to each other.
Quoted from the New York Times:
“Welcome to my living room,” declared Rufus Wainwright, the unofficial host of “The McGarrigle Christmas Hour,” a multigenerational holiday musical that sprawled across the stage of Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening. An annual event that used to revolve around Kate and Anna McGarrigle, the French-Canadian folk-singing sisters from Montreal, and their circle, it has expanded in size and scope as a younger generation of family members and friends has come of age.
At one point there were over 30 singers and musicians on stage, including Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Jimmy Fallon, Lou Reed, and Emmy Lou Harris.
Also, quoted from the Times (because they say it better than me...)
Here were some of my other favorite moments: Mr. Thompson, a great folk-pop singer, performing his original song “Christmas”; Mr. Reed droning a deadpan “Blue Christmas”; Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Bond giving “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” the full Judy Garland treatment; Martha Wainwright’s seriocomic take on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”; Jimmy Fallon’s parodies of Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie singing “Jingle Bells”; Emmylou Harris leading “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; and Ms. Anderson’s monologue, which included her sardonic reflection on humanity’s relation to the stars: “We can’t hurt them.”
Back in that cabin in the woods Mr. Wainwright sang an unamplified “O Holy Night,” with his mother at the piano. As the McGarrigles led a quartet accompanied by traditional instruments through the French “Carol of the Birds,” the fire crackled, snow fell and for a moment time suspended its march.
In foreground from left, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright and Anna McGarrigle.
