By Emily Miller

REXBURG — Ryan Shupe is getting ready to haul his guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo up to Idaho to spread some musical Christmas cheer this weekend. 

Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand will perform Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Rexburg Tabernacle Civic Center at 51 N. Center Street in Rexburg. Tickets are available here. 

Shupe and his bandmates have played in east Idaho many times over the years, and Shupe likened performing in Rexburg to visiting relatives. 

“It’s always been kind of a fun place to go,” Shupe says. “It’s like visiting an old relative. You’ve just got to make it up there to see all the cousins.”

The band will perform a mix of original Christmas tunes and well-known, traditional songs with the Ryan Shupe twist. According to the band’s website, the lineup features calypso, beatnik, and bluegrass-inspired songs. 

A mixed-age choir of local will join the band for a handful of their songs, including “We Three Kings,” “Silent Night,” “The Night That Christ Was Born,” and others.  

“It just adds to the show — makes it more Christmas-y,” Shupe says. “It gets people involved — adds that flavor and gives a little more oomph to some of the songs.”

Mitch Workman of Rexburg is a member of the local singing group backing up Shupe and his band for the show. He says it’s a fun and unique opportunity to be involved. 

“It seemed like a good opportunity to enjoy the Christmas spirit, and do it kind of in family groups,” Workman says, noting that many of the choir members are participating with their families. “For me, personally, my daughter is also in the group … I’m an old fuddy duddy, and the fact that she agreed to sing with her old fuddy duddy dad means that she enjoys it and sees it as a fun opportunity, too.”

Workman appreciates the chance to work on something with friends and family during the busy holidays. 

“We often get pulled in a million different directions, so to do some of those things as family, it just adds to the season,” Workman says. 

Shupe says his yearly Christmas tour started “by accident” after the band was asked to put together music for an event that involved multiple acts. After learning a few Christmas songs, Shupe says he decided he’d create a whole Christmas show. 

“We started playing and said, ‘Let’s just take our show on the road,” he says. 

Shupe is originally from Ogden, Utah, and now resides in Orem, Utah. He was raised in a musical family and began playing the fiddle at a very young age. 

“I come from a long line of fiddle players,” he says. “I started playing when I was 5 and started playing in bands when I was 10.”

After learning the fiddle, he picked up the mandolin and the guitar, and eventually learned to play the banjo, too. He started performing with his “RubberBand” in 1996 and has released nine albums. 

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