Never mind the fact that Craig Ferguson claims that one of the questions he was asked on his citizenship exam was “Do you enjoy gum?’’ Jokes aside, the late-night host, naturalized American citizen, and Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular emcee pointed to the Fourth Of July’s “unabashed, uncynical’’ nature as the reason it’s his favorite holiday, and that was the spirit of the program that Keith Lockhart and the Pops put together for the revelers on the Esplanade last night.
There were certainly few deviations from the subject at hand. Unlike previous years’ concerts, which found room for pop songs and examples of more lighthearted Americana like “Casey At The Bat,’’ there was a fairly tight focus on explicitly patriotic material. Renese King’s bluesy “America the Beautiful’’ and the Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums filled in during the early ramp-up to the concert proper, which began in earnest with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus’s flyover-enhanced “Star-Spangled Banner.’’ And, as per Ferguson’s earlier comment, “earnest’’ was key: their stodgy “This Is My Country’’ could have come from any decade going back to the 1930s.
