The Wizards of Winter return to the Paramount in Bristol for the first time since 2019

The holiday rock group, born as a Trans-Siberian Orchestra tribute and now writing its own songs, plays the Paramount Center for the Arts on Saturday, Dec. 19.

Six Christmases have come and gone since The Wizards of Winter last lit up the Paramount in Bristol. This year, the holiday rock outfit is back on State Street the Saturday before Christmas, which puts a night of electric guitars, keyboards and big seasonal choruses right in the thick of the last-minute shopping rush.

The Wizards of Winter play the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol on Saturday, Dec. 19, at 7:30 p.m. The theater's own listing puts doors at 6:30 p.m., and tickets are sold through the Paramount, with seats listed from about $34 to $96.50. The show was announced Oct. 14.

It is the group's first Tri-Cities show since Dec. 22, 2019, when it played the same 765-seat room. That makes this the first holiday season since before the pandemic that the band has been on the Paramount's calendar, and for anyone who made a tradition of it back then, it is a tradition picking back up.

The band's story is one of the more unusual ones in holiday music. The Wizards of Winter started out as a Trans-Siberian Orchestra tribute band in Frenchtown, New Jersey, in the late 2000s, taking its name from TSO's "Wizards in Winter." It did not stay a tribute act for long. The group moved quickly into writing its own holiday material, released albums of original songs including The Magic of Winter in late 2015, and today it makes a point of saying it is not a tribute band.

What gives that claim weight is who has passed through the lineup. Over the years the group has featured a run of musicians who once played with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, including Tommy Farese, Guy LeMonnier, Tony Gaynor and Joe Cerisano, among others. Membership shifts from year to year, so the cast that shows up in Bristol may not match the one that played here in 2019, but the formula has stayed the same: symphonic rock arrangements wrapped around holiday storytelling, billed as an annual Christmas rock opera.

That formula fits the Paramount well. A 765-seat theater is a far cry from an arena, and that is the appeal. In a room this size, the guitars and keyboards are loud enough to feel in your chest, but nobody is watching the show on a video screen from the rafters. It is close enough to see the players' hands, which matters for a band built on instrumental flash.

A few practical notes. The Paramount sits at 518 State Street, and with doors at 6:30 and the show at 7:30, there is time for an early dinner downtown before heading in. The Saturday before Christmas is a busy night in downtown Bristol, so give yourself extra time to park. And buying through the venue directly is the surest way to pay face value rather than resale prices.

Some families do the Christmas parade, some do the light displays, some do a night at the theater. If your crew has been waiting since 2019 for this one to come back around, December 19 is the night.

Sources: The Wizards of Winter — Paramount Bristol event page (paramountbristol.org); The Wizards of Winter (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Wizards of Winter, with four former members of Trans Siberian Orchestra, to perform in Collingswood (WHYY) (whyy.org); Wizards of Winter paving their own holiday music path (AJC) (ajc.com); The Wizards of Winter at Paramount Center for the Arts (JamBase) (jambase.com)