Cincinnati music greats Over the Rhine have made their annual Christmastime concerts a Cincinnati holiday tradition for many in the area over the past decade-plus. The year, main OTRers Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist took their program of “reality Christmas songs” (plus music from their many other albums) on the road for a trek that began with two dates in Seattle in late November and has included shows in Oregon, California and Arizona. OTR’s latest spate of touring has been as a trio (with multi-instrumentalist Brad Meinerding) and will run through Michigan, Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio this weekend.
This year’s holiday road-tripping wraps up with three hometown shows at Memorial Hall (1225 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine, memorialhallotr.com). At the time of this writing, tickets for the weekend concerts Dec. 21-23 ($40-$65) were running low, so it’s advised to get yours pronto (they’re available via ticketmaster.com) if you’re hoping to spend some holiday time with Bergquist and Detweiler, who will celebrate OTR’s 30th anniversary next year. Singer/songwriter Leigh Nash, formerly of Sixpence None the Richer, opens all three shows. The concerts begin at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Sunday’s show has a 2 p.m. start time.
“What is it about Christmas music and the undeniable gravitational pull it exerts on some songwriters?” Detweiler asked in a note promoting this year’s holiday concerts. Over the Rhine began indulging the Christmas muse on record 22 years ago when the band (then featuring founding members Ric Hordinski and Brian Kelley, plus bassist Chris Dahlgren) recorded and released The Darkest Night Of The Year, a 13-track mix of original songs that channeled a haunted, melancholic holiday spirit and arrangements of standards like “The First Noel” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” In 2006, the band released its first all-original Christmas collection, Snow Angels. Over the Rhine’s most recent holiday album is 2014’s mostly original Blood Oranges in the Show, which featured a trio of covers, including Merle Haggard’s “If We Make it Through December.”
In a recent interview with CityBeat’s sister publication Cleveland Scene, Detweiler said it was after recording Blood Oranges that Bergquist coined the phrase “reality Christmas music” as a description of their somber holiday offerings.
“If there’s an empty seat at the table or if you’ve lost a loved one or lost a job, that stuff doesn’t just disappear during the holidays,” he explained. “Me being a little bit of a melancholy, artistic type, there’s something heartbreaking about this time of year that I’ve always felt. Some of that comes out in our original tunes. We found some of the space to fill in the gaps where there were very few Christmas songs written.”
There may be another Christmas album again someday, but it’s unlikely to be in 2019. Bergquist and Detweiler will likely have their hands full promoting their all-new LP Love & Revelation, which is slated for release on March 15, 2019 on the couple’s own Great Speckled Dog label.
Here's Love & Revelation's album cover artwork: