Storm Large Makes Merry

Storm Large is as much a Portland icon as they come. Having burst onto the Portland performance scene in the early 2000s, she is likely best known for her 2006 turn as a contestant on the reality shows Rockstar: Supernova and America’s Got Talent;. locals also know her as the singer who’s fronted bands like The Balls and Pink Martini.

But her favorite performance of the year is one she’s been doing since 2002: Storm Large’s Holiday Ordeal. She’ll reprise the tradition this weekend, bringing her genre-fluid pipes, perverted jokes and peep show to the Aladdin Theatre on Nov. 28 and 29.

An annual variety show for the more mature masses, the Ordeal features Christmas carols, protest songs, spoken-word poetry, drag performances, fan favorite originals and sing-alongs. A little bit cabaret and a little bit rock and roll, goofy lighthearted fun lies at the center of Large’s holiday bonanza.

“I love Christmas music, I love the holiday season, and I love all the mythology around all the different legends and heroes’ journeys—all that stuff that seems to land around the solstice,” Large tells WW. “Basically the whole thing is, don’t take it too fucking seriously. Let’s have fun. Let’s play music. Let’s sing.”

While her 2012 memoir Crazy Enough describes a tumultuous upbringing, she does have fond memories of her childhood holidays. One Christmas Eve, she says, she cried herself to sleep because her family neglected to ensure Santa’s safety by putting out dual fireplace fires in their rural Pennsylvania home. Santa—aka Large’s 6-foot-5-inch grandfather Henry Large Sr.—left a soot-stained note assuring her that he did not need her to worry about fire on his account. “Because duh, he’s magic.”

That upbringing didn’t leave her with any family traditions, but she does have one tradition she has maintained for the past 10 years.

“I look for a Christmas miracle. I set an intention at the top of the season and I say, ‘All right, show me a miracle,’ and I keep my eyes peeled. I don’t mean some heavy-lifting Jesus stuff, I mean redemption, hope in a hopeless place, a stroke of luck, a windfall—not just for me, but in my periphery,” Large says. “There have been some pretty hefty miracles in there which have knocked my socks off. But that’s my tradition. I open up my aperture and say, ‘Show me the light, show me the beauty, show me something.’”

Poison Waters, James Beaton, and Holcombe Wallers will join the main stage during Large’s festive spectacular this Ordeal. “It’s my favorite two shows that I do every year,” Large says. “I decorate the Aladdin. I always go to Portland Nursery and get some cedar garland. I stink of evergreens and I decorate with lights, stupid fake candles, menorahs and glittery shit. I make the band wear antlers and they hate it. I’m like, ‘Fuck you, put this on, and smile.’”

The Ordeal is always meant to spark light in a time of darkness, but this year, Large says, it feels especially important to embrace joy amid the chaos and fear of the second Trump administration.

“Portland has been such an awesome example of how to fight darkness with light, “ says Large, who recently moved back to Portland after a nomadic period between Los Angeles, New York and Massachusetts (she still lives part-time in North Carolina, where she moved in 2023).

“The frogs, inflatables, aerobics dancing at the ICE facilities, and the nonviolence—we’ve come a long way since Black Lives Matter and COVID,” referring to Portland’s sustained protests in 2020. “We were such a harshly reactionary, very easily goaded into violence sort of community—understandably because we were constantly getting picked on,” Large says.

But the more lighthearted vibe of recent protests doesn’t ignore that “every day there’s some scary shit happening.” And she recognizes audiences are looking for a reprieve from a tense economic and political atmosphere. “Singing a bunch of Christmas carols at the end of the world? I don’t think it’s naive.”

SEE IT: Storm Large’s Holiday Ordeal at the Aladdin Theatre, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-234-9694, aladdin-theater.com. 8 pm Friday and Saturday, Nov. 28 and 29. $81.45.