Music promoters, Acoustic Harvest are putting together a great concert series of the finest talent around Toronto. This is their 27^th year and I just experienced their Christmas show with Nicholas Campbell and the Barrel Boys.

St Paul’s United Church located at 210 McIntosh St around Kingston Rd and Midland Ave hosted the event. It is a real community event with coffee and tea and tasty treats to enjoy when you walk in. They have a merch table for the artists and you can even buy a raffle ticket. Everyone I ran into was open and inviting. This is a great place to see a show. And the acoustics are fabulous.

Nicholas Campbell

With a yodeling opening number, Nicholas Campbell knew how to make everyone smile from the get go. His choice of songs varied from serious themes to very fun and happy themes. He got dark from the beginning with a song called “A prisoner in the cell”. It had a country flavour that worked very well with his vocals. He could be a wonderful country singer, but I soon learned he had more to him.

He really brought out his sense of humour about a date that went very wrong. He called this one, “Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda”. Sing that with a Matthew McConaughey twang and you have yourself a big hit!

What I enjoyed about this young performer was how well spoken and confident he was up on the stage.  His stories delighted the audience, and he knew how to grab and keep our attention. Most young artist usually just say Thank you in a meek and mild voice and move onto their next song.

Images of Nicholas Campbell:

The Barrel Boys

If Bluegrass is your thing, then the Barrel Boys could be your band. I would even say, if you know nothing about bluegrass, the Barrel Boys may open up a new world for you. In a nut shell, their vocals are pitch perfect and their instrumentation is extremely high on the quality factor. It was as smooth and warm like your favourite blanket.

I give props to the sound guy, because the band sounded perfectly balanced for the entire evening. Their sound was like ear candy. But since it was a Christmas concert, it was closer to a candy cane sound.

They are calling this mini tour, Carols from the Barrel. I will add a poster just in case they are playing close to you soon.

One of the funniest moments came when they decided to pull out a classic Christmas song from our childhood, “Grandma got run over by a Reindeer”. You could actually hear little fits of laughter coming from various parts of the room. In fact, if you didn’t laugh at one point during this song, I think you should quickly check your pulse. Either that or you may have Grinch blood running through your veins.

Speaking of the Grinch, I was thoroughly surprised when they actually did the Grinch song. Another happy childhood memory fulfilled. I could feel my warm little pajamas on my body again because of their song choices.

The Barrel boys really brought home a lot of delightful stories that everyone could relate to. Their sense of humour matched perfectly with family themes. Their whimsical way of building up to the actual song was impeccable. They really made you feel as if you were at a happy family reunion with about 200 of your closest relatives all packed in a church.

The Barrel Boys are made up of five very fine players, we have Kyle Kirkpatrick on Dobro, Rob McLaren on Banjo, Tim Reilly on Bass, Nathan Smith on Fiddle, and Ben Wright on Guitar. You have all of them taking turns on vocals. These were the moments where each one of them gets to tell a story and you get to learn a little more about their personalities when they take the lead on a song.

They pulled off a couple of Canadian moment by sharing some of their favourite Christmas songs from, people like Rita McNeil, Raffi and Gordon Lightfoot.

During the pandemic, these boys had to stay at home and not tour during the season. They came up with a grand idea by videotaping 2 half hour specials and putting them on YouTube. If you don’t have a chance to see them live this year, you can go and still get your Christmas fix by clicking on these links.

The Barrel Boys Christmas Special 2020

The Barrel Boys’ Christmas Special, Volume II – A Christmas Barrel

They finished the evening off with two excellent classic songs; The first one was an exercise in true happiness by singing “Joy to the World” and the beautifully peaceful, “Silent Night”.

Images of the Barrel Boys:

Acoustic Harvest has a show once a month at St Paul’s United Church. You can find them on our new Events page, or you can visit their website www.acousticharvest.ca

If you are in the neighbourhood, you should really go out a get your yearly happy Christmas check-up. Here is the poster to their final dates.