Bradley Center, Milwaukee, WI12/13/09 (Afternoon show)
Lights and lasers and pyro, oh my! Add to it a kick ass bunch of musicians, a stirring story, and a very appreciative crowd, and you’ve got the makings of a spectacular show.
2009 marks the 11th year the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has gone on their Christmas time rounds, putting on a show full of spectacle and wonderment. It’s about the 6th or 7th time I’ve caught their act, and judging by the crowd reaction when guitarist and band leader Al Pitrelli asked the audience who the veterans were, I was far from alone in trying to make TSO an annual event. I’d actually missed the show in 2008, so this time around, I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass by. Even though I’d agreed to cover the show for this ‘zine, e-mail snafus meant that I left Madison for the 90 minute trek to the Bradley Center in Milwaukee not knowing whether tickets were waiting for me. No matter, I was all ready to buy my way into the show, but it turned out that the publicist had come through. And then when I got in and showed my ticket to an usher, it slowly dawned on me how huge the publicist had actually come through – the usher kept moving further and further forward, until he was point at a seat in the center of the very front row.
The jaw, naturally, dropped, and I had to make a couple of phone calls to brag about my good luck. A few minutes later, the lights went down, the local radio station’s DJ came out with a rep from a local food bank, along with Tommy Farese and Anthony Gaynor from the band. Gaynor stood right in front of me, just a few feet away, with a huge cardboard check that turned out to be worth $11800, the proceeds of the dollar per presold ticket donation to the food bank. The crowd gave a huge roar at that, as well as at the mention of our men and women in uniform, and soon afterwards, the real show commenced.
Surprisingly, the band started out with, “Night Enchanted,” a track from Nightcastle, their long awaited release which finally saw the light of day in October. The show opened with a choir consisting of 5 male and 5 female vocals, and 2 violinists, Roddy Chong and Caitlin Moe, taking center stage. Out to the left, Angus Clark held down the fort with his guitar, and at stage right, the two keyboardists Jane Mangini and Derek Wieland took their places. Partway through the song, the choir started melting away, with one of the guys producing a guitar out of thin air (or from behind his back, whichever), and joining the instrumentalists at the front of the stage. As the lights and lasers built to a crescendo, three different pieces of the stage, one at left, one right, and one center started rising, carrying the two violinists, Clark, and bassist Chris Altenhoff high above their peers, starting off the night in spectacular fashion.
When the Nightcastle track started, I wondered if this was going to be a different show from the usual, where the band does the Christmas Eve and other Stories saga first, and a second set consisting of selections from their other albums. The crowd, being used to that format, may have been disappointed if that wasn’t the case, but we need not have worried. Soon enough, Anthony Gaynor took his position, alone on stage, to begin the familiar monologue, accompanied only by Jane Mangini’s keyboard. The story is now a teenager, the first TSO album having been released in 1996, but it just keeps getting better with age.
Andrew Ross led off the parade of rotating vocalists with his powerhouse delivery on “An Angel Came Down.” The song came to an end with band leader Al Pitrelli having a little solo showcase, as the massive video boards
behind him radiated blue waves spreading out from a central point, an eerie, yet very cool effect. A couple of songs later, it was Jeff Scott Soto’s turn to take center stage on vocals. He came out wearing the tuxedo uniform all the guys had on, but he had the top two button of this shirt undone to reveal a simple gold chain underneath. While he delivered a stirring rendition of “The Prince of Peace,” I couldn’t help but thinking that as good as my vantage point was, I couldn’t really see any of the keyboardists’ work – the last time I’d caught TSO, I was in the upper right balconies, with good angles to watch Wieland and Mangini work their magic.
To this point, there had been a lot of lights and lasers already, but the fire works had yet to be seen. That changed with the double shot of First Snow/A Mad Russian’s Christmas. Gaynor came out to narrate the intro to First Snow, ending with his magical snap of the fingers, causing flakes to start falling in the Bradley Center air as he said of the angel in the story, “everywhere he went, snow fell.” The energy and the heat were both turned up for this instrumental double shot, as the first pyrotechnic bursts were added to the lasers and light show. The violinists against assumed center stage for a good portion of a Mad Russian’s Christmas. Chong and Moe were all over the stage, spending two different sessions center stage, playing catch with their increasingly sad looking violin bows. Snapped horse hair flew in every direction as the two tossed their bows to one another, never once dropping a bow in about twenty exchanges from about ten feet away.
They just looked like they were having a good time. All that, of course, was just prelude to TSO’s signature song, “Christmas Ever/Sarajevo 12/24,” and as usual, the band poured themselves into the song, PItrelli and Clark taking center stage along with bassist Altenhoff. Near the end of the song, the center riser in the stage elevated, but without anyone standing on it, making me wonder if someone had missed their mark. Turns out that the riser doubled as a pyro platform in this case, for when the big fire bombs went off in the back, jets of flame flew from the side of the riser, a highly satisfying effect.
Tommy Farese took his first turn in the spotlight on Ornament, as the father hoping for his girl to make it home for Christmas, and then it was time for the emotional highlight of every TSO show, “Old City Bar.” As Anthony
delivered the intro narrative, Bart Shatto, in his hobo guise, shuffled in from stage left, with his luggage in tow, uncertainly approaching the microphone, pausing to take a swig from a bottle of Jack Daniels, looking over at Al Pitrelli and unleashing a croak of “Freebird,” all before launching into the song. As usual, I was reduced to tears as Shatto spun his tale of a minor miracle at a nondescript bar on Christmas Eve. The performance was slowed down from what one hears on the CD, with Shatto and Pitrelli taking little breaks, to let the wino grab a cigarette, or take a pull from the flask he pulled out of his hip pocket. For the first time that night, I saw
more than just one or two of the people around me singing along. I definitely wasn’t alone in shedding a few tears, either.
The first set wraps up on a happy note, with Farese returning as the father, belting out the triumphant chorus, “She’s coming home this Christmas day!”, and Andrew Ross bringing the angel’s tale to a conclusion with “An Angel Returned.” The epilogue, with its uplifting, "Kyrie among nations" chorus, had the woman next to me singing along in full voice, obviously reveling in her favorite song.
Then it was time for the second half of the show, where (barely) restrained rock opera gives way to full blown, hair tossing rock spectacle. Every once in a while, you see a critical review of TSO, deriding the 80s rock show
cheesiness, with the short skirted female singers tossing their hair here there and everywhere, and macho guitar antics, and you wonder how in this age of YouTube, those critics managed to not know this about TSO going into the show. This band has been delivering their spectacular brand of over-the-top entertainment for over a decade now, and there’s a reason people keep coming back year after year. Simply put, it’s a big, loud, fun show to witness. And in the second half of the show, all restraint is thrown out the window, as TSO really cuts loose.
The set started out with a number of Nightcastle tracks, opening with “Toccata.” Electric arcs flew across the video screens as the song commenced. Towards the end of the song, the audience was pummeled with a series of pyrotechnics, with warm blast from the cannons at the back of the stage joined by longer lasting flames on each side of the stage, and also between drummer John O’Reilly and the two guitarists standing center stage. The transition to “The Mountain” (which, as a long time Savatage fan, I wrote down as “Prelude to Madness” in my notes) was heralded by Angus Clark, and his rose-labeled guitar taking a ride up on the center riser, as green flame jets rose from the back and both sides of the stage. More video board lightning arcs ensued, as flames races across the stage and back, and at times in both direction. As the riser dropped back down to stage level, Clark entered a tapping frenzy, all but molesting the fretboard with both hands.
TSO dipped into the back catalogue for “Queen of the Winter” night, with Kristin Gorman handling the operatic acrobatics. The setup for this song highlighted one of the few shortcomings of the front row seat – as usual,
the main vocalist on this track delivered her vocal pyrotechnics from a platform at the back of the stadium, which meant that I contented myself with watching the band performance. From there, it was back to Nightcastle
for “Moonlight and Madness,” which started out with a low, ominous rumble, accompanied by flashing lights, conveying a sense of alarm, of bad things about to happen. Pitrelli cut through the unease with a solo, and
later in the song, Angus Clark joined him, the two axe men standing back to back in a little spotlight island, trading licks, as the lights and lasers flashed all around them.
“Mozart/Figaro” belonged to Roddy Chong, as he started out sawing away in the center of the stage, and then spent the rest of the song flying from wing to wing, just being a crazy man with a violin in hand. At the end,
he was playing at the front of the stage, and jumped forward onto the stairs as cold jets of steam (?) exploded at the forward edge of the stage. The effect was pretty cool, one of the jets propelling him forward, and the
grin on his face said he was a fan of the move, too. We could hear him yelling, “Hello Milwaukee!” over and over, even though he wasn’t wearing a microphone.
After that, it was time for the ladies of TSO to take center stage, with their rendition of Christmas Canon. Taking off from Pachebel, 4 female singers, including Kristin Gorman and Erin Henry advanced slowly towards
their positions as the song began. Henry sang lead at the beginning as the other three went through their synchronized hair tossing maneuvers prior to joining in as a backing choir. This is another crowd favorite,
a laid back, chilled out track with a very familiar melody, and looking around, you could see people nodding along, loosening up a little bit at long last. At previous TSO shows, I’d always looked out at the floor crowd
and was amazed at how still they stayed through the whole concert. There were always 5 or 6 people out there rocking out, probably the metal fans in the crowd who scored floor seats, but for the most part, it was always a staid crowd for a hard rock/borderline heavy metal show. It dawned on me pretty early in the show that on this afternoon, I was one of those 5 or 6 floor seat patrons who was really getting into the show the whole time, a thought that made me chuckle.
The energy was injected back into the proceeding with the band’s cover of the ELP track “Nutrocker,” featuring a jam session between Jane Mangini and Al Pitrelli that included excerpts from Deep Purple’s Highway Star, among other classic rock snippets, and ended with the husband and wife standing back to back, still dueling it out. At long last, the crowd was definitely engaged in the show, and it kept going that way as the band launched into Wizards in Winter. Chong had an equipment malfunction during the song, as his shoulder rest popped off his violin at one point. But no problem, he just kept playing until he had a moment, stuck it back on, and kept right on going.
And, then, all too soon, it was on to the final segment, beginning with “Requiem (The Fifth)” and feathery red jets of flame shooting up from the stage. The platform in the back of the hall was raised far above the crowd
and served as a flame platform, too. Clark and Moe left the stage to wander up into the crowd near the end of the song, reuniting at the back platform as “Christmas Jam” started up. The platform then rose up, apparently
supported by steam jets, looking for all the world like it was floating in the air, an amazing effect. All this was setup for the traditional show closer, a reprise of Sarajevo/Christmas Eve 12/24. Moe and Clark raced back
up the aisles to join the band, including Anthony Gaynor rocking out on a bass, as the show came to a close with a curtain of sparks flowing from the ceiling.
As the band took its bows, Pitrelli handed over a signed guitar to a young girl invited out of the crowd, who had this precious look of amazement as she realized that she’d get to keep the guitar. Even though it’s a look that we as adults rarely show anymore, I’d like to think there were a few moments during the show where all our jaws dropped in delight and amazement. Like I’ve said before, there’s a reason that Trans Siberian Orchestra pulls in the same crowd over and over again – these guys put on one hell of a show, a spectacle in every sense of the word. I can’t wait to witness it again next year…and maybe, just maybe, if the promised springtime Nightcastle tour comes to fruition, we won’t have to wait until the Christmas season for the next TSO fix.
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