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Pentatonix at the Prudential Center, NJ

December 13, 2021

Pentatonix kicked off their Christmas tour in support of their 4th Christmas album Evergreen November 27th in Baltimore, MD and stopped at the Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils, December 7th. This is the group’s ninth headlining tour. Penatonix was formed by high school friends Scott Hoying (baritone), Mitch Grassi (tenor), and Kristin Maldonado (alto) with Avi Kaplan (bass/percussion) and Kevin Olusola (beat-boxing). The group competed in Sing-off and won the third season 10 years ago. Since then Pentatonix has become the biggest A cappella group world-wide. What you hear in their music is all vocals and no instruments.

Over the next decade the group performed at the Kennedy Center honors in 2014 honoring Tom Hanks, won three consecutive Grammys, won two YouTube awards, a Steamy Award, and a Shorty award, and have been nominated for awards from Billboard, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice, iHeart Music, and a Daytime Emmy. In 2017 Matt Sallee replaced Kaplan as the group’s vocal bass singer. They have sold over 10 million albums worldwide, have two number one albums on the Billboard, and their albums and singles range from Gold to Multi-Platinum. Their 2020 Christmas album We Need a Little Christmas went two number four on the Billboard Top Holiday albums. Pentatonix closed out 2020 with a performance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and NBC’s New Year’s Eve. Now in 2021, the group is finally back on tour and able to perform their music. They also released their second album of all originals earlier this year which was titled The Lucky Ones.

What made this tour so significant was that this time last year tours were still canceled since the Covid-19 Pandemic lockdowns began and there was much less of celebrating the holiday season. This would be the first time for many hearing Christmas music performed live in 2 years. The opening number was Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time.” The set included covers from Perry Como, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, and Celine Dion as well six originals of the 21 songs performed and even a vocal bass and drum solo. Being a vocal group, it’s quite impressive to sell arenas and perform that many songs a night. There was an intermission after the ninth song “We Need a Little Christmas.” The two song encore consisted of “My Heart With You,” and “Joyful, Joyful.”

The tour concludes December 23 in Grand Prairie, TX at the Texas Trust CU Theatre. There are also a number of overseas dates for 2022 between Europe and the U.K.

Setlist