I, like many of you, tend to find little joy in the banality of holiday music that streams endlessly through the speakers of department stores during this time of year. Having had the displeasure of working during this season at one of these customer service establishments, I found it difficult to smile through a full days work while listening to the same Josh Groban and Bing Crosby songs played over and over until I feel an uncontrollable urge to bash-in my skull with a metal Christmas tree stand. During a certain season, I discovered a lonely CD sitting unnoticed at the back of a friend’s collection. I immediately brought it into work and demanded the management play it repeatedly over the store speaker-system. I gained legendary status amongst my coworkers as we found ourselves privy to the sweet, melodic sounds of A Twisted Christmas.

With that said, you can understand my excitement when I found out that Twisted Sister would be performing a special Christmas show at the Nokia Theatre on Broadway. After several days of securing the proper credentials, I eventually found myself waiting in a long line in Times Square on a chilly evening eager to see the iconoclastic, heavy metal legends perform their unique interpretations of carols which I had sung in the church choir during my youth. As we filed into the theatre, it was impossible not to notice the varied assortment of people who filled the vast corridors of the Nokia Theatre. While generally older and considerably less agile attendants filled the upper seating area, the main pit was filled with a cacophony of mixed concert goers, from the over-moussed, male-bouffant “squares” to the crusty, sleeveless denim-jacket wearing metalheads whose apparel hasn’t been laundered since they hand-sewed that “Twisted Sister: S.M.F.” patch in 1983. Three of these long-time rockers I came to distinguish as spot-on look-alikes of Gene Simmons (pre-facelift), Rob Halford of Judas Priest, and Ronnie James Dio.

After letting the crowd get considerably drunk and increasingly obnoxious, the powers that be let the opening acts come out on the stage to warm-up the crowd. Comedians Don Jamison and Jim Florentine of VH1’s That Metal Show each performed a short stand-up comedy routine. Both had trouble keeping the intoxicated audience engaged and had to work their way through many a “I’m-so-important-when-I’m-drunk” heckling despite their material being of the intellectual caliber worthy of a metal crowd (except when Jamison casually mentioned President Obama as a segue into one of his jokes. The utterance of the “dreaded O-word,” although not a subject of the actual joke, resulted in a large boo-ing from the overwhelmingly Republican audience. This helped to explain much of the arrogance of the crowd and why many looked as though they had just recently purchased their leather jackets in a thinly-veiled attempt to look cooler). As humorous as I thought the stand-up was, it seemed like a poor choice as an introductory act for Twisted Sister, especially when you consider that the opening act at last year’s Christmas special was Mini Kiss.

Despite the heckling, the crowd got a few hearty chuckles about idiosyncrasies related to New Jersey residents and continued to get further wasted as they waited for Twisted Sister to eventually take the stage. What started out as a general communal camaraderie slowly morphed into animalistic anticipation, exemplified by one denim-clad rocker who paced back and forth, fists clenched, at the rear of the pit ready to rock out. Fearing the wrath of this powder-keg looking goon, I made my way up to the stage-front and showed security my media credentials that granted me access to the 4-foot wide photographer’s pit directly in front of the stage. I sat directly in the middle of the stage with my little camera waiting patiently as the other press photographers laughed, mulled about, and took pictures of front row audience members with digital cameras that were shoved into their faces.

The lights went out, the crowd erupted, and the curtains withdrew revealing a stage set that looked like a factory for demented holiday elves kicked out of Santa’s workshop. Several wicked looking elves crawled around the stage as the loudspeakers played a rather lifeless version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” On top of what looked like a large metal grinder, an elf inserted a large candy-cane, buckets of glitter, and other various objects into the receptor. Another elf on the floor spun a large hand-crank which opened a door beneath the grinding mechanism and, one by one, out walked drummer A. J. Pero, bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza, and guitarists Jay Jay French and Eddie “Fingers” Ojeda. The band members took their places onstage showing signs of their age by way of excessive pancake make-up (even for Twisted Sister standards), pot-bellies, and less-than-lively mobility, especially with regards to Ojeda who had emergency back surgery a mere three days prior to the concert.

In spite of appearing noticeably aged, when the four band members began to play the into of their version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” they all magically turned into seventeen-year-olds who love to crank up their amplifiers to an ear-deafening level. As they began rocking out the Christmas tune, “when what to my wondering eyes would appear?” but a tricked-out sleigh towed by five of the most gorgeous, lingerie-clad reindeer that I have ever seen. It was Snider-Clause! With a sack full of candy-canes and condoms that he scattered throughout the audience with unadulterated gusto. He grabbed his signature pink mic-stand and began tearing around the stage scream-singing the lyrics in typical Twisted fashion.

The photographers in the media pit were now jostling all around the stage-front frantically trying to keep up with the mad frontman in an effort to secure a much desired photo. I stood out from the group as I would quickly become distracted by the unyielding heavy-metal, raising my fist in the air, and screaming the words to the carols that have been branded into my subconscious. Plus, it was ungodly intimidating when Dee would jump down in front of my face, full make-up, hair flailing about and all I can think of is, “Holy crap on a candy-cane! I’m twelve inches from Dee-freakin’-Snider!”

The band continued to rock through their special Christmas-themed show playing all the songs off A Twisted Christmas and interjecting at various times with classic hits from their past like “You Can’t Stop Rock and Roll.” On this auspicious occasion, the band was also celebrating the 25th anniversary of the classic heavy metal album Stay Hungry by playing “The Hunger,” “Burn in Hell,” and “Stay Hungry” ending the song with a fifteen-minute drum solo by Pero, which, in my opinion, was the best solo I’ve ever heard before you factor in the use of a double-kick bass drum. They addressed the stark similarities of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" and "We're Not Gonna Take It" pointing out that they both carry the same basic melody. During their version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” Which Snider dedicated to military personnel fighting overseas, former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis joined Snider for panty-wetting duet. At one point, Snider announced that the reason why they don’t ever play any new music is because that typically indicates a “bathroom song,” which led him to reveal that the anniversary edition of Stay Hungry features several new songs, one of which was played for us that night, aptly titled “30 (The Bathroom Song).” They ended their mixed set of classic Christmas and classic Twisted songs with a crowd jostling version of “I Wanna Rock” which effectively got every single fist raised into the air with every echoing chant of “Rock!” They thanked the audience and promptly exited the stage to an uproar of chants for more from the rock-gods. Not from me, of course, because I knew they would soon be returning to the stage since they hadn’t played “Heavy Metal Christmas,” their parody of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

When they returned to the stage, amidst a roar from the crowd, they all lined the front of the stage, sans instruments, and held up hand-made signs depicting the various days of heavy metal gift-givings including “five skull earrings,” “two pairs of spandex pants,” “and a tat-too of Oz-zy!” They finished the show by inviting special guests from the New York City Fire Department to join them onstage to help them sing a chaotic version of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” much to the delight of the crowd who, by now, had sucked up to the stage tighter than the leather pants on the hairsprayed, Botoxed, living 80s stereotype from Jersey who lurked around the venue after the lights came back on.

And I was looking through my iPod last week thinking how I needed to listen to more heavy metal…