Yule Be Wiggling Christmas Show (lost footage of "The Wiggles" live performance; existence unconfirmed; 2000)

Poster for the tour.

Status: Existence Unconfirmed

Yule Be Wiggling is the twelfth album released by the Australian children's group The Wiggles, that was released on December 20, 2000 and was the group's second Christmas album after Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas in 1996. The video of the same name wouldn't be released until October 22, 2001. The video itself was recorded at the Sydney Entertainment Centre during the group's tour in December 2000 to promote the album^[1]. The tour would be called "Yule Be Wiggling Christmas Show", it would also be the group's first Christmas themed tour. The tour would become the most illusive tour of the group's career with very little documentation on the tour surfacing.

History

The tour commenced on December 5th at the Perth Entertainment Centre and would end on December 23rd at the Sydney Entertainment Centre^[2] with the group performing at Australia's famed Carols In The Domain later that day^[3]. The tour would be known for several things, like it would be their first tour to have two acts, the first tour to debut the songs In The Wiggles' World, Christmas Picnic, Wags Loves To Shake Shake, Here Come The Reindeer, Murray's Christmas Samba, Christmas Star, Just Can't Wait For Christmas Day, Ding Dong Merrily on High, Decorate The Tree, Christmas Polka, It's a Christmas Party On The Goodship Feathersword, Curoo Curoo, Wiggly Wiggly Christmas and Jimmy The Elf. It was also the first tour to have Toot Toot, Chugga Chugga, Big Red Car as the last song of the first act (as the song would be known as the very first song of the group's concert since 1998).

With little information about the tour available, it's known that the first act would be Summer themed with a mix of both Christmas songs and songs the group did in years past and the second act would be Northern winter themed and would heavily feature Christmas songs the group did on Yule Be Wiggling and Wiggly, Wiggly Christmas^[4]. Also what's known about the tour is that Irish singer Morgan Crowley (who appears with the group on the album track Curoo Curoo) appears halfway through the tour to sing Curoo Curoo with the group. The concert on each tour date, opens like the video did with a present descending onto the stage revealing the group inside and that the set from the video was used on the tour as well. This would be the first tour to use guitars that were manufactured by Maton, the group would still use Maton guitars to this very day.

Availability

The tour's setlist from Michael King

A small amount of photos from the tour have surfaced in varying quality, with some of them coming from a Sydney Morning Herald newspaper article on the group that mentions the tour and accounts what happened before, during and after the Perth Entertainment Centre shows^[5]. The photos from the Sydney Morning Herald were the highest quality photos from the tour^[6] to have surfaced until 2022 when Instagram user highmankieran unearthed several photos from one of the Perth Entertainment Centre shows^[7]^[8] (one of the photos posted showed the song Decorate The Tree being performed) and several more photos from a fan site that has not been archived would surface not long after. The setlist for the tour was unknown for over 20 years until longtime fan Michael King shared a page from the tour's program showing the full setlist on his Instagram story (Decorate The Tree is nowhere to be seen on the setlist in the program). No footage (or any evidence of footage) from the tour has surfaced in the over 20 years since the tour ended. It is known the group records several concerts from various tours they did and most, if not all of them would be unseen by the public, while very few have been officially released on VHS and DVD, but little is known if any shows from the Yule Be Wiggling Christmas Show were ever recorded.

In November 2020, the group announced on Twitter a series of rare and unreleased materials from the group's career to be uploaded to YouTube in the future called "Unreleased NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN Specials". The materials that would be uploaded to the group's official YouTube would be determined by fan suggestions^[9]. Many users on Twitter suggested footage from the Yule Be Wiggling Christmas Show to be among the material uploaded to YouTube^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]. The series resumed on October 20, 2021 following a nine-month hiatus.^[14] Outside of the group's offical Twitter account liking a tweet on the tour's 20th anniversary and request a release of one of the concerts^[15], neither the group or any members of the group have commented on the existence of any footage from the tour. For now, the existence of any footage from the Yule Be Wiggling Christmas Show remains unknown.

Gallery

Videos

Yule Be Wiggling video (recorded at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in December 2000 or January 2001)

Promo for the Perth Entertainment Centre shows

Images

Backup dancers on the tour's stage
Rob Miles in the Big Red Car on the tour's stage
Audience photo of In The Wiggles World
Audience photo of Rock-A-Bye Your Bear
Audience photo of Christmas Picnic
Audience photo of the cast receiving gifts from the crowd
Photo of the Audience at one of the shows
Audience photo of Jeff and Greg
Audience photo of Christmas Star
Audience photo of Another Cuppa (1/2)
Audience photo of Another Cuppa (2/2)
Photo from Sydney Morning Herald of Just Can't Wait For Christmas Day
Audience photo of Toot Toot (1/5)
Audience photo of Toot Toot (2/5)
Audience photo of Toot Toot (3/5)
Audience photo of Toot Toot (4/5)
Audience photo of Toot Toot (5/5)
Audience photo of Decorate The Tree
Photo of Anthony and Jeff decorating Captain Feathersword (Paul Paddick) like a Christmas Tree
Photo of Jeff, Anthony and Greg with guitars
Audience photo of It's A Christmas Party On The Goodship Feathersword