Hey, these guys are GOOD! <Yuk, yuk!>
Seriously, the Haygood family is a very entertaining group of 7 bothers and one sister that performs a family-friendly, entirely entertaining, sterotypically "Branson" style of show in a comfortably sized theater with enough lights, effects, gimmicks, and a great sound system to seriously give you your money's worth for an evening.
None of these siblings are world-class singers, dancers, instrumentalists, etc. What they are is a family of extremely talented, multi-diciplined performers that know how to put many facets together to make their audience come back over and over, talking about them in between viewings - which frankly, is exactly what I'm doing.
They have a knack for picking songs that appeal to a broad audience. They're also gifted at arranging the songs to their vocal and performance strengths. And, to top it off, they use gimmicks of jokes, choreography, dancing, a little acrobatics, and the "kid factor". While their previous outfits are rumored to have left a bit to be desired, the ones we saw (and there were MANY changes throughout the show) were perfect. Their costumes consisted of 40's flapper garb, 60's hippie clothes, Jackson 5 wigs, Sonny and Cher costumes, blacklight sensitive costuming, and more.
The performing children range in age from early-30's to 12 years old. The only girl is 14 years old and the second-youngest. The two youngest are freqently paired to perform together and pull off the "cute kids" act very well, even if like their siblings, it's the total package that's appealing, and not one aspect of their skills specifically.
In my opinion, that's a good thing. Many people are one-dimentionally talented. Rarely are today's performers truly multi-talented. Many are ex-dancers that have to sing to get the celebrity and paycheck they desire, etc.
On top of everything else, they have the requesite merchandise table in the back that manages to take complete advantage of your current feel-good emotions by pricing their wares very affordably. Dad Haygood is nothing if not a shrewd businessman. He obviously sees the value of making sure the products sell, so you buy in quantity and each new item they release. This is contrary to many performers who try to make up every cost they have in a single sale. The difference is the "other performers" are content to sell bigger to you once. The Haywoods keep you coming back for repeat sales. We purchased all 3 of their available CDs for $25. We'll be likely to purchase their next one too. Our friends already had the CDs, but purchased a well-produced DVD of the show.
In short, we'll be back. Our kids liked it. We liked it. It was reasonably priced and a very good time.
Later.