Pentatonix brings its Christmas in the City tour to Intrust Bank Arena
The newest member of the a capella group Pentatonix, Matthew Sallee, joined in 2017, just before its first Christmas tour.
“They had done shows before, but stepping their toe into Christmas was still somewhat new,” he recalled from a tour stop in Denver. “It was just so well received, and just realizing, oh wow, people just want to enjoy each other, enjoy the music, and earlier and earlier every year. Last year, we started a week earlier than we started this year, we started even earlier, and so we just are continuing that Christmas and holiday tradition.”
The sixth stop on Pentatonix’ “Christmas in the City” tour is Sunday night at Intrust Bank Arena, returning after playing there in 2023.
The tour is named for the vocal group’s seventh holiday album, released in October. Tracks include a mix of originals and traditional songs, as well as a mashup with Frank Sinatra on “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.”
“The theme of the album is Christmas in various cities, and the inspiration came from being in New York, during Christmastime with the Macy’s parade, storefronts and Christmas markets and Broadway being lit up, and just the buzz of, the feeling of the city,” Sallee said. “We thought if we can just hone that into a feeling, into a song, that kind of grew into the theme of the record.”
The concert, like the “Christmas in the City” album, opens with the title cut.
“It really just sets the tone with big kind of Broadway-esque sound,” Sallee said, “into another song called ‘Silver Bells’ is a cover that everyone knows and loves that we kind of spun and put in a different time signature. We decided to pay homage to the ‘40s and the ‘50s, with this record, to honor that sound and really just get people to direct their attention to how amazing that time was and that time period of music.
“We really tried to make a classic Christmas album, and I think we accomplished that well with all the different instrumentation and sounds and vocal-forward melodies that we added and things like that,” he added. “It’s just a really fun show.”
“Christmas in the City” is one of two Pentatonix titles in Billboard’s Top 10 holiday albums chart this week. No other act has multiple appearances. The five-person group has made so many Christmas recordings, it’s even released two compilation albums.
“The band has said on countless occasions that they did not have an anticipation of Christmas being such a big thing,” Sallee said.
A 2013 video of “Little Drummer Boy” went viral, and “kind of set the scene for Christmas,” he said.
“The list is very short of songs that we haven’t covered yet,” he said with a laugh. “But creativity is endless, right? And so we can reimagine songs, and we’ve written so many songs. This album has maybe 65% original songs on it. And that was fun to just imagine what, songs that we’re thinking about, dreaming about, ideas that come together.
“We have five different various musical influences and backgrounds, and that really helps us to be able to come together as almost like a super group, because it can pull from all these different, as I call it, paint watercolors, and just, ooh, you add blue here, and oh, that’s really cool, let’s grab that color. It has grown and blossomed into this beautiful painting.”
Thanks to groups like Pentatonix and Straight No Chaser, a capella music has grown from a punchline – Sallee immediately offers the character of Andy Bernard from “The Office,” a college vocal music geek – to a more respected musical form.
“So many talented, incredible vocalists and arrangers have just put their hat in the ring in the acapella realm,” he said. “It’s just become more and more mainstream, more and more, I guess you would say, cool. And it’s less about it being cool and more about it being impressive. It’s really difficult to do.”
Sallee said he’s amazed by the age range in the audience, especially for the Christmas shows.
“Families are just coming out each and every year and making it kind of a family tradition of sorts, and just really enjoying our show,” the 31-year-old Baltimore native said. “What we pride ourselves in is that we can see a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother and their children, you know, all able to connect and enjoy a show together, and it involves our music, and it’s very, very humbling to just experience that and just know that we can provide that for families. It’s just really cool.”
PENTATONIX
When: 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16
Where: Intrust Bank Arena
Tickets: $51-$379, from selectaseat.com, the arena box office, or 316-755-7328