Ahhh, Christmas! When the holidays begin to stress you out you can always enjoy some mellow Christmas music like Silent Night or White Christmas. But for those that like their holiday music a little louder, make your way to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Xmas Spectacular at the Reif Center for some great guitar riffs, screaming vocals and riotous drum solos!
Abbreviated ‘RRXS,’ this production has returned to the Reif Center many times with a mixture of familiar classics and new material. Whether they put a rock ‘n’ roll spin on a classic Christmas carol or they add Christmas lyrics to a classic rock song, you can always expect superb musicianship!
We’ve had RRXS so often that all I need to do is confirm what time load in is and schedule our crew! They bring nearly everything, their own set pieces, audio and moving lights.
Their audio person, Rustin, takes a couple of our crew to crank up sound towers on either side of the stage for their speakers, run cable to their Front of House sound board, and set up microphones.
Scooter is in charge of lights. He’ll take a couple of our crew to hang moving lights over the stage, set up his light board in the booth, and tie into our lighting system to use out lights for some band specials and colors.
The set doesn’t arrive until later in the afternoon when the band arrives. The first few years their set was a pain! They had these giant RRXS letters in back that were set up on floor stanchions and it was difficult to get them just right. Now, the letters hang from a pipe. On either side of the stage they had these giant fake speakers. Before they were all made out of wood and heavy and hard to put together. Now the fake speakers are just cloth over a collapsible frame that assembles easily.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the tremendous amount of confetti and streamers they use! The big finale has two or three big blasts from confetti cannons on either side of the stage. They usually have a couple of handheld cannons too, as well and streamers and balloons. I think they are tied with Spamalot for the sheer quantity of confetti, but RRXS certainly has the record for distance as they get confetti all the way to the back row and up on the catwalks! You can imagine the high school custodial staff love this… The best way they have come up to clean it is to get a leaf blower and start at the back row, blowing all the confetti down to the front row where it can be shoveled up.
The balloons for the finale are all blown up during load in by the Reif crew; luckily they have a couple of machines for that! Before our renovation, the balloons were in a balcony above the booth until crew tossed them out into the audience. Since the renovation, the balloons store in the balconies on either side of the audience seating. I think early on they might have gotten some cheap balloons and they would pop during the show. Most of the time not a big deal, it’s a pretty loud show. But, there is a soft instrumental of Silent Night near the end of the show, and invariably that’s when a couple of balloons would go off! They have a better quality balloon now, but when we moved the balloons to the side balconies, they started to pop again. It was from them rubbing up against the wood siding that surrounds the auditorium! Now we put up plastic sheeting over the wood to protect the balloons. So far that has worked pretty well!
As much as you prepare for every eventuality, there are just some things you can’t anticipate. This next story I wasn’t even here for, I had gone back to Alaska for Christmas, leaving RRXS is the very capable hands of our Reif crew.
At the top of every RRXS performance they have a short video. We drop in the screen in front of the musicians, play the video, and take it right back out as they launch into their first song. After 30 some odd years the gears on the screen motor had completely wore down, and it chose that moment to fail, leaving the crew unable to raise the screen! The musicians tried to pull the screen to the side and get in front of it, but the screen was still massively in the way! Understandably, the crew was somewhat frantic, eventually a couple of them got up in the catwalk and pulled the screen up by hand and were able to tie it off. It wasn’t pretty, but the show must go on! It took a few months before we got a replacement as both the screen and the motor were irreparable. Hopefully this one will last for 30 years too, or at least until I retire!
I can’t guarantee anything like that will happen this year, I’m hoping it doesn’t, but it’s a live experience and almost anything can (and does) happen!
This year’s performance is sold out, hope you got your tickets early.