They’re well-known for using props like giant underwear and Monopoly money onstage, but last night at Turning Stone Casino, the Barenaked Ladies broke out a real surprise – children.

The Casey Park Select Children’s Choir from Casey Park Elementary School in Auburn served as backup for the opening numbers of the Upstate New York portion of the Barenaked Ladies’ ‘Barenaked for the Holidays’ tour. The evening featured tried-and-true hits along with jazzed-up winter favorites in a perfect blend of guilt and pleasure, as evidenced in the ridiculous banter between Steven Page and Ed Robertson, both lead singers and guitarists.

‘The entire choir just about stormed out of here when they found out this was a dry casino,’ Robertson said, inciting an enthusiastic devil’s horn sign from a choirboy in the back row.

Cozily settled on a stage decorated with a Christmas tree, wreaths and a working fireplace adorned with stockings for each band member, the Ladies finished off their set with their young companions. But this was to be no lazy fireside sing-along. The band quickly launched into ‘Be my Yoko Ono’ from 1992’s ‘Gordon,’ at which point one audience member decided it would be a good time to explain to his son just exactly who Yoko Ono – and John Lennon – are.

The hits kept rolling. Thongs flew onstage during ‘Pinch Me.’ Page rattled off medleys of high kicks, joyous leaps and dolphin-like poses. And, as has come to be expected, there were the improvised songs, including a badly-butchered version of Deep Blue Something’s ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ to advertise the Ladies’ appearance on an A&E show of a similar name.

Although their stage dcor was entirely Christmas-based, the Ladies threw in Jewish favorites as well, the most successful coming when ‘Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel’ was tacked onto the end of ‘One Week.’ After stumbling through ‘Gonna make a break and take a fake / I’d like a stinkin’ achin’ shake / I like vanilla, it’s the finest of the flavors,’ audience members were happy to belt out the simpler ‘dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made you out of clay’ that ensued.

Known for their high-energy performances, the Ladies disappointingly seemed to have slowed down the pep in their old age. Page’s stage bounding became more leisurely near the end of the evening, and lesser-known songs such as ‘Great Provider’ and ‘Grade Nine’ didn’t quite come off with the necessary enthusiasm. Large packs of audience members rolled out before the Ladies broke out their double-encore, which unfortunately featured ‘Big Boy’ instead of better slow hits like ‘Call and Answer’ and ‘Wrap Your Arms Around Me.’

But nothing bad can be said about those songs that the Ladies put their whole souls into. A medley of ‘Jingle Bells’ started off slow, then turned to raucous, bringing the whole crowd to its feet. The perennial classic ‘If I had $1,000,000′ was nothing but magic for Medina Ejaz, a seventh-grader at Horseheads Middle School, who was attending her very first BNL show with her friend Camryn Brown, also a seventh-grader. Ejaz said she grew up with the Ladies’ music from her sisters and thought the show was ‘amazing.’

‘(I liked the song because) they interacted with us a lot,’ Brown said.

The LeeVees, otherwise known as Adam Gardner from Guster’s Hanukkah band, warmed the crowd up for the Ladies with such soon-to-be-classics as ‘Goyem Friends.’

‘If you don’t know what that means, you’re one of them,’ Gardner warned the crowd.

And as a satisfied crowd spilled toward Turning Stone’s doors, the Ladies did a surprise walk of fame through the lobby. Screams and claps resonated throughout the faux palm tree-encrusted room. It was almost like The Beatles had arrived. But this time, no one had to explain who John Lennon – or Steven Page – was.

Published on November 29, 2005 at 12:00 pm