By: Alan Gould, Senior Editor

When Monica brought up The Wiggles as a candidate at the staff meeting for the honor this year, most of the staff without children did not know anything about The Wiggles other than they were some type of kids singing and dance group on the Disney Channel or something. Turns out when compared to many other artists and many other stage shows we saw, the overall value of entertainment was undeniably strong.

Musically, The Wiggles has several advantages. First, being they are focused on the vertical of children’s music versus any specific category like R&B, rock, classic rock, contemporary, reggae, ethnic, etc., they are actually all of these combined. If you look past the accompanying trumpet playing on many tracks which is used to lighten up the mood for younger listeners and listen down past the lyrics (which are for kids), the fundamental music value of many songs by The Wiggles is quite good. We found songs as good any anything the Beatles, Jimmy Buffet, ELO, James Taylor, The Romantics, Elvis, Moody Blues and Paul Simon have put out. We also agreed that Greg Page’s (voice, guitar, keyboards) voice is uniquely special. Several performers such as James Taylor and Phil Collins have a similar trait in that instead of using vibrato to match pitch when singing, Page opts not to inject to much vibrato in any song which can expose a singer to pitch challenges. However, as like Taylor and Collins, Page does sing this way and to the benefit of all listeners. It would be quite feasible for Page to cover James Taylor song and make them as good or even better.

Sure, I know I know, but it is for kids.

We had not made a full decision on The Wiggles until we attended their show this past weekend at the Gibson (Universal) Amphitheater in Studio City, CA. This year it took a kids show to entertain us. Unlike a group such as the Eagles that sits in chairs, strums a guitar and plays 30 year old music with no stage show (fall asleep to Tequila Sunrise), The Wiggles productions could easily entertain on Broadway if introduced with more elaborate changing sets. There is a significant amount of movement and action in virtually every song. In a one on one interview with Murray Cook (guitar, vocals), he confirmed that their shows are physically demanding on them; certainly more than most shows you can see.

Sure I know I know, but it is for kids.

Audience participation is a category we look at closely. Sure Jimmy Buffet has his Parrot Heads that sing along to every song, toss beach balls around and turn a theater into a Caribbean party, but that atmosphere was driven by his fans. We were pleasantly surprised by how interactive The Wiggles were. Just like any other major A list show where the audience knows the words, Wiggles fans were prepared with roses for their character Dorothy the Dinosaur (thousands of roses by the way), many poster signs in which they read all of them from the stage (the audience members knew to bring them), bones for the Wags the Dog Character, and more. And of course one unfair advantage, no rock star today would ever step into the audience and walk around in the isles like they did. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith would be ripped to shreds by 20 women. The worst case scenario I suspect would be for Jeff Fatt (Keyboards, Vocals) or Anthony Field (Percussion, Guitar, vocals) to fight off a five year old. More seriously, I saw some fairly aggressive parents knocking their kids down to get a picture. I think I also saw a single mom sort of through herself into Anthony Field in the Isle. Guess you could say this is sort of like the Tyler experience.

The price for the tickets were $38.00 each. I would imagine for some this comes off as a large sum of money to entertain your children. However, consider the cost of other concerts in which you can pay $100.00-$150 face value for today big name stars (Rolling Stones, Eagles). Their sets, audio, visual, promotion, advertising, etc. is the same as this show (or less in some cases). For the quality of production, we though this was an excellent value. What we asked our selves was would you want to see the Stones or the Eagles for $150.00 or be entertained by The Wiggles show 20% of the cost. Well, that one was harder to answer for some of the younger staff but the consensus was that we all felt anyone could have been entertained by this show no matter what age.

So, bottom line, we are looking for all around Entertainment value from a performer or group. None of us felt that going as far as making The Wiggles our performer of the year was a real stretch. They were compared to the list of usual suspects of Barry Manilow, The Rolling Stones, Green Day, Celine Dion, Madonna and others. When all things considered, The Wiggles are truly a class act which has created an entirely new paradigm in children’s entertainment. By combining their University training in Child Development, teaching experiences and life long musicianship, they have achieved something completely new in Entertainment. It is our opinion, after seeing the reaction of the crowd, thousands of people single along to these songs, it made me wonder where classic children’s music comes from. Barney covers many songs that we all heard growing up as children (tisket a tasket, This old man, etc.) had to come from somewhere. These songs have become a part of Americana and other parts of the world. It would not surprise any of us at all that if several of the songs from The Wiggles vast library of musical content will one day be recognized as part of our worldwide collection of lasting children’s music. Just like when I leave big name artists shows with a deep portfolio of popular music, I have songs from the Wiggles show I am having trouble getting out of my head. We call that certifiable good.

On a final note I personally wanted to thank Murray Cook, Greg Page, Jeff Fatt and Anthony Field (The Wiggles) for allowing us to part take in an eye-opening weekend. I spent some time with each of these gentleman back stage on both of their Saturday and Sunday performances and learned several things about them I wanted to share. First, not only are they all very talented musicians (I would know as a pianist, saxophonist and vocalist for 25 years), there success has not be lost on any of them. They are a group of quite grateful school teachers that are one part of the fortunate few that were able to apply their knowledge into something much bigger than themselves. The pure joy that we saw in the eyes and ears of thousands of adults and children was nothing less than an amazing thing to see. If you can not catch the show this year, go next year. If you can’t wait, buy the DVD Sailing Around the World for a Child you know. There is clinical proof that music positively affects brain development. There is proof enough for everyone here at ConcertTickets.com that The Wiggles are a unanimous pick for our organizations Entertainer of the Year Award – 2006.