OAKLAND — Of the 12 albums released by a cappella quintet Pentatonix, six are Christmas records. Like clockwork, the extremely talented group has released a holiday LP every even year since 2014—the most recent being October’s culture-traveling Holidays Around the World. So the group’s “A Christmas Spectacular,” which kicked off at Oakland Arena on Thursday night, just makes perfect sense.

Fresh off a Grammy nomination for 2021 album Evergreen (a bonus Christmas album in an odd year!), Pentatonix brought holiday cheer and a lot of impressive vocal dynamics to what the group said was its biggest tour ever. Oakland Arena was far from packed, but it was still impressive how five vocalists, with little instrumental accompaniment, can draw thousands. Selling millions of records, having multiple No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart and a massive social media following certainly helps.

Baritone Scott Hoying, tenor Mitch Grassi, soprano Kirstin Maldonado, beatboxer-cellist Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee (vocal bass), who joined the group in 2017, demonstrated skills both as a group and individually. Performing with a pair of dancers (who began the show in impressive fashion with the male dancer carrying out the female dancer as if she was the toy doll in “The Nutcracker”), they let their voices shine.

The most powerful singing took place on songs like “Mary, Did You Know,” “Little Drummer Boy” (a highlight for Maldonado), English Christmas carol “I Saw Three Ships” and uplifting hymnal “Joyful Joyful,” which turned into a praise song.

Kicking off with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” which the group sped up at the end, Pentatonix quickly moved to early highlight “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” What made this one fun was how the group gave each verse its own genre-specific vibe and then repeated each verse in that genre every time it returned to it. Another fun early moment came during “White Winter Hymnal,” on which the group used its bodies as percussion instruments, snapping, clapping, smacking their knees and hi-fiving each other.

The pacing was a problem, with a majority of the slower songs falling into the first half of the concert—which was then separated from the second half by an intermission of about 20 minutes. The audience, which had remained in seats for the entire time, hadn’t yet broken a sweat when the intermission came.

The first set included a spin-the-wheel segment where Pentatonix would perform a shortened version of one of eight songs, and on this night they included “Sleigh Ride,” “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” “We Need a Little Christmas” and “Deck the Halls.”

“We didn’t practice these, by the way,” Sallee said, even as the songs sounded terrific. But the time between them slowed the show’s momentum. Afterward, Hoying declared his love for social media—TikTok; not Twitter, which was melting down at the same time—and attempted to complete a TikTok challenge that involved the audience moving one arm up and down and another to draw a triangle. Instead, it looked like everyone was trying to climb a rope in gym class.

“It’s our first TikTok with an audience!” Hoying shouted.

Additionally, there wasn’t much for the five members to do up on stage but sing. When they played the Fox Theater in Oakland in 2015, the group had a set of bleacher-like stairs to clumb (and that was plenty for a smaller room). While the production on this tour is adequate with fancy lighting and a pretty, large wreath made from snowflakes at the back of the stage, it was not proportionally better.

What that did was put the spotlight even more on the performance, which worked well in the second half of the show but less so in the first.

After a wardrobe change from red and burgundy outfits to black with sparkly accents, the group returned for a much stronger set starting with its beautiful cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” performed against a star-speckled background with a large moon. Then came a fun and inventive collection of songs from the new album, all of which were performed with inflections of other cultures. For example, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” sounded Middle-Eastern; “Love Came On Christmas” was a reworking of “Joy to the World” with a Congolese gospel singer, Grace Lokwa’s “Kumama Papa;” and “Feliz Navidad” was paired with the dancers performing some tango-inspired moves and a flamenco guitar backing track.

The greatest audience participation came with the one-two punch of “Last Christmas” and “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” both of which inspired singalongs. And that was topped by Olusola’s “cello-boxing” (beatboxing while playing his cello) to the preulude to Bach’s “Cello Suite no. 1” and first movement of Beethoven’s “Symphony no. 5.” On the latter, his cello sounded like a wailing electric guitar. Both of them got a standing ovation. Olusola’s parents and sister were in attendance and they also got a standing ovation.

“You all need a standing ovation for letting a medical student who graduated become a professional beatboxer,” Hoying told them.

The later highlights included “River,” with Grassi, Hoying and Maldonado harmonizing until openers Girl Named Tom took over the second verse, and Evergreen‘s title track, which was also performed with the openers and backed by an acoustic guitar. The group concluded the show with”Silent Night,” during which you could hear a pin drop on the cavernous room, and the uplifting “Kid on Christmas.”

Girl Named Tom, a trio of siblings, opened the show with its own set of holiday classics. The group was the winner of season 21 of “The Voice.” On Thursday it was backed by two additional musicians as it breezed through songs like “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,” “O Holy Night,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which was performed in front of a standup piano—as if they were at their grandmother’s house.

Bekah Liechty, dressed in a sparkly white cocktail dress and white boots, and brothers Caleb and Joshua Liechty (in suits) also played originals like “No Snow for Christmas” and “Isn’t That What Christmas Is For,” with pretty multipart harmonies.

They also told the story of how their father, who passed away earlier this year while the band was still on “The Voice.” They wanted to quit the show but he told them to go on. he was able to celebrate their win at the hospital. The story led into “One More Christmas,” which Girl Named Tom dedicated to “everyone who has an empty place at the table this Christmas.”

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter. Follow photographer Gavin Legaspi at Instagram.com/batang.gabino.