Review: ‘Queen of Christmas’ or not, Mariah Carey reigns over Wells Fargo Center

Christmas comes but once a year, and brings Mariah Carey a big payday.

‘Tis the season not just for the self-proclaimed “Queen of Christmas,” whose “Merry Christmas One and All” holiday music extravaganza arrived at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday, for a 90-minute set of mostly mistletoe-and-holly seasonal songs.

Along with Carey, several other (mostly deceased) holiday music creators are in on the action: Bobby Helms (“Jingle Bell Rock”), Wham! (“Last Christmas”), Burl Ives (“Holly Jolly Christmas”), and Andy Williams (“The Most Wonderful Time of The Year”) all have current Top 10 hits.

As does Brenda Lee, the former “Little Miss Dynamite” whose 1958 “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has topped the Billboard chart for two weeks running, besting Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” at #2. All of those old songs are new again, thanks to retail outlets relentlessly playing them on music streaming services like Spotify throughout the holiday shopping season.

“All I Want,” which Carey wrote with Walter Afanasieff in 1994, and was ably covered by the Eagles’ singing linemen on A Philly Special Christmas Special this year, is the most modern of holiday standards. It doesn’t turn 30 until next year. And it’s the reason for being for Carey’s annual Yuletide takeover, which began this year with a pre-Thanksgiving social media post in which she emerged from a block of ice and announced: “It’s Time!”

But one song does not a full-blown holiday show make, and Carey had 90 minutes to fill on Wednesday night. And since she’s fully committed to the concept, with more than twice as much time devoted to jingle-jangle songs than to her own hits, that made for a lot of holiday content.

Which was just fine with the audience that packed the South Philly arena, arriving in Santa hats if not head-to-toe Santa suits. As DJ Suss One warmed up the crowd inside, people took the time to mingle around the 20-foot-tree strategically placed in the concourse near the merch stand. That and the unfortunately-not-chewable Gingerbread House. “This house is not edible,” a candy-cane-decorated sign declared. “Please no eating, tasting, or licking the house.”

Carey made her entrance to a remixed recording of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” joining young ballerinas, eight dancers dressed as hotel porters, and three backup vocalists (including R&B singer Trey Lorenz) and a fine, understated four-person band.

The star of the show began the evening in a floor-length red gown, and opened with the 18th-century English carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” which she recorded on her first of two holiday albums, Merry Christmas, which came out in 1994.

It signaled that the set would mix secular holiday fare like Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and Carey’s own “Oh Santa!” along with traditional standards like “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.” The latter hymn by English cleric Isaac Watts got remixed with Three Dog Night’s 1971 hit of the same name.

As pop superstars’ arena-sized stage shows go, Carey’s approach is uncharacteristically sedate. There was lots of movement on stage, but little of it coming from Carey herself. She donned a spiked golden goddess crown when joined on “Jesus Born on This Day” by her daughter, Monroe Cannon. Cannon also took lead vocals on a cover of The Waitresses’ snappy 1981 hit “Christmas Wrapping” while her mother was off stage changing her costume.

With its wholesome content and unhurried pace, “Merry Christmas One and All” could be confused with a 1970s television variety show. It doesn’t rely on splashy visuals or exploding fireworks but puts the emphasis on Carey both playing up her diva status — she twice called out her two-man “Glam Squad” to tidy up her hair and makeup on stage — and doing what she does best: singing.

She seemed to be singing live, with no electronic trickery — with able support from her backup singers and on some songs, an eight-person choir — throughout the evening.

About two-thirds of the way through, she broke from the holiday program for a medley of her own hits, with eight songs run through in 15 minutes, starting with “Always Be My Baby” and closing with “Fly Like a Bird.”

She did put her famous five-octave vocal range on display, ever so briefly, in hitting the glass-shattering note in “Emotions,” the slinky 1991 groove that is still her most delectable hit. But she missed her opportunity to put a ribbon on “Fly Like a Bird” with a “Go, Birds!,” but there was a cheesesteak reference earlier in the show.

Two secular songs got full-length treatment, each with a message of positivity: “We Belong Together” from 2005′s The Emancipation of Mimi and “Hero,” from 1993′s Music Box, on which the room was filled up with sparkling white light from mobile phones held high.

And then … it really was time for “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which kept up the unafraid-to-be-corny, old-fashioned presentation with Carey riding on and off the stage on a train.

After all these years, the song is certainly still a banger, and its love-conquers-commercialism sentiment melts away cynicism the way the best Christmas songs do. But after having heard it seemingly hundreds of times already this holiday season, it felt anticlimactic to actually see it performed in person in a live version that was spirited but couldn’t match the snow-globe perfection of the original that’s been in your head for weeks.

Here is the set list for Mariah Carey’s show on Dec. 13, 2023, on her “Merry Christmas One and All” tour stop at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center:

“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”

“Oh Santa!”

“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”

“When Christmas Comes”

“Sleigh Ride”

“Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)”

“Christmas Wrapping” (sung by Monroe Cannon)

“Fall in Love with Christmas” (sung by the choir)

“Silent Night”

“Jesus Born on This Day” (with Monroe Cannon)

“One Child”

“Joy to the World”

“Christmas Time Is n the Air Again”

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (piano solo)

“My All”

Medley: “Always Be My Baby” / “Dream Lover” / “Honey " / “Heartbreaker” / “A No No” / “It’s a Wrap” / “Emotions” / “Make It Happen” / “Fly Like a Bird”

“We Belong Together”

“Hero”

Encore:

“All I Want for Christmas Is You”