Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas Offering: a Snow Job

Chip Davis of Mannheim Steamroller is a master showman, a humble wizard of fancy lighting and flashy set decoration. That tends to push his slick “Fresh Aire” musical sound schemes into the background--an appropriate place for his blend of pop and light classical elements. The Steamroller makes happy music of little depth and only passing charm.

At the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim on Tuesday, the Nebraska-based quartet gave a Christmas concert with the help of additional string and horn sections.

But for all the musical flourishes, all the synths and occasional polyrhythms, there was little to challenge the ears. The group’s show was a more musically conservative operation than a typical performance of Handel’s “Messiah.”

Mannheim Steamroller has nonetheless captured an audience hungry for feel-good holiday music, selling an astonishing 18 million Christmas albums over the last decade and a half. That figure puts to shame all the efforts of modern pop figures struggling to craft new holiday standards.

Tuesday’s concert was a well-organized family affair, with children’s choirs singing carols in the lobby, while fans were greeted by actors dressed as snowmen, elves and other characters.

Onstage, the band’s core players, dressed in white tails, performed a mix of carols and Steamroller originals as artificial snow fell from the rafters.

The stage was dominated by three huge video screens, flashing scenes from nature, home movies and ice skaters from the Dec. 19 NBC-TV Steamroller holiday special, “The Christmas Angel,” built around the music from its new album of the same name. The videos rarely stopped, creating the odd sensation of watching a television program with a relentlessly perky soundtrack.

Mannheim Steamroller offered no twists on holiday symbolism, nothing to make the season truly its own, just sound and images to inspire that old peaceful, easy feeling.

The group did finally touch an organic nerve just below the surface during “Silent Night,” which featured tasteful piano and Davis’ effects-laden harmonies, sounding like the tuneful moaning of a ghostly Beach Boys vocal.

Perfectly nice, but still perfectly forgettable.