(12-09-2022, 04:37 AM)brendalee999 Wrote: [ -> ] (11-28-2022, 01:28 PM)danfromnj Wrote: [ -> ]Ed Ryan and Vince Oddo have been filling in for Andrew Ross and Jeff Scott Soto on the West tour.
Saw them in Spokane 11.25.22. The show was fabulous as always, but I did really miss Jeff and Andrew!
Since Ed and Vince started the next day in Seattle, who covered their parts in Spokane?
(10-24-2022, 08:45 AM)bobm27 Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder if the East is getting John Brink back in exchange.
Yes they get Brink back.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO John Brink is one of my favorite vocalists on the West tour I'm gong to be totally selfish and say Sorry Easties but you can't have him.
I'm glad Brink is back with the east. He does a much better job on "An Angel Came Down" and "What Child is this?". West can keep Dustin and it is great having John back. 12/14/2022 7:30 PNC Arena, Raleigh, NC somewhere in row 1, floor 3...whoa, that's tomorrow night, got to get packing. See you at the show!
(12-14-2022, 02:33 AM)TheBigTBone Wrote: [ -> ] (10-24-2022, 08:45 AM)bobm27 Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder if the East is getting John Brink back in exchange.
Yes they get Brink back.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO John Brink is one of my favorite vocalists on the West tour I'm gong to be totally selfish and say Sorry Easties but you can't have him.
I'm glad Brink is back with the east. He does a much better job on "An Angel Came Down" and "What Child is this?". West can keep Dustin and it is great having John back. 12/14/2022 7:30 PNC Arena, Raleigh, NC somewhere in row 1, floor 3...whoa, that's tomorrow night, got to get packing. See you at the show!
My favorite Brink performance clip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEgCoC5wUOo
Is the signing line back this year? Need to know if I need to take my program to the shows.
(12-17-2022, 07:21 AM)Hawkeye Wrote: [ -> ]Is the signing line back this year? Need to know if I need to take my program to the shows.
No, no signing lines for TSO.
The Raleigh show was AWESOME. A minor glitch with power cutting for a second or two but what a show. First time in the front row right side, right in front of right side lift. I will be back next year and this was truly one of TSO's better shows. While Chris was in front of me he lost his pick in the strings at the pick-up...pretty cool to see what is going on, the looks, the facial expressions etc. Did anyone notice that in the one song (a new one) that there was the music from Steely Dans "Reeling in the years?" As they were playing it I was having that moment trying to figure out were I heard that and it finally clicked in...thought that was pretty cool. Brink was AWESOME as well and so good to have him back east. BTW, WHERE WAS CALEB JOHNSON? I did not notice until the singer intros that he was not there. All the singers were great, but I wish they would let Caleb or Russel do "Music Box Blues." Nothing against Erica, but I think Caleb could nail it to the "T", going back next year for sure and going to try to gat that front seat one more time...I was really impressed this year.
(12-18-2022, 03:50 AM)TheBigTBone Wrote: [ -> ]The Raleigh show was AWESOME. A minor glitch with power cutting for a second or two but what a show. First time in the front row right side, right in front of right side lift. I will be back next year and this was truly one of TSO's better shows. While Chris was in front of me he lost his pick in the strings at the pick-up...pretty cool to see what is going on, the looks, the facial expressions etc. Did anyone notice that in the one song (a new one) that there was the music from Steely Dans "Reeling in the years?" As they were playing it I was having that moment trying to figure out were I heard that and it finally clicked in...thought that was pretty cool. Brink was AWESOME as well and so good to have him back east. BTW, WHERE WAS CALEB JOHNSON? I did not notice until the singer intros that he was not there. All the singers were great, but I wish they would let Caleb or Russel do "Music Box Blues." Nothing against Erica, but I think Caleb could nail it to the "T", going back next year for sure and going to try to gat that front seat one more time...I was really impressed this year.
When they were learning / rehearsing “Carousels of Christmas” in rehearsals, Al came up with the idea to slip in the Steely Dan quote. Pretty neat.
Caleb was out sick for a week or so and missed a bunch of shows. Russell did his Good King Joy in his stead and Christmas Dreams went back to Zak in the interim.
Funny you say that about Music Box Blues. Definitely was rehearsed and planned that way if Erika was unable to go.
Okay so yesterday I saw the show in Philadelphia and it was pretty damn good show as they always are. I wouldn't say that it was better than the other TGOCE shows but was still really good.
-I've always said that Fate would be a great opening forboding opening track on a TSO Christmas tour, so to see it actually open the show this tour was absolutley incredible.
-I liked that there were some firsts on this tour, such as the first time Prometheus was preformed live, it's a good instrumental but I think it's a little too cutesy to open the show with, I would have absolutley preferred March of The Kings or Winter Palace or even Moonlight and Madness. I also really dug Christmas Carousels, the entirely new song that opened the second set. If the long-rumored new TSO Christmas album comes out, I hope the new song is on it!
-In terms of the stage, I was a little dissapointed to find that it was a kind of a plain stage, just a lot of video screens and no scenery like what we saw on most of the TGOCE shows where the stage itself almost looks like a theater entrance. I do wish they'd get away from the elaborate CGI intros and just do the bell tolling intro like they used to. However, the catwalk over the audience was a cool throwback to 2010-2011's CEAOS and 2016-2017's TGOCE shows and I like how they brought back the rotating cherry picker lift from 2014's TCA tour as the B-stage.
-In terms of setlist, I'm glad that this time around they did a slightly longer second set of music unlike last year's which was WAY too short. However I feel like they REALLY went overboard with the bathroom break songs on this tour. You already have enough ballads in the first set, doing both For The Sake of Our Brother AND having Kayla Reeves singing her ballad just seemed really redundant. I love the fact they did Siberian Sleigh Ride, A Last Illusion (in its entirety no less) , and Madness of Men, but I seriously would have swapped out Christmas In The Air with a song like Handful of Rain or Chance and squeezed in The Mountain or Tracers somewhere in the set. Other than the Kayla Reeves ballad and Sarajevo 12/24, there wasn't really that much Savatage representation in the set at all this year unlike 2019 when they did both The Storm AND Handful of Rain and 2021 when they opened the show and the second set with Savatage songs.
-Music wise, the band was top notch as always. John Brink is an absolutley incredible bass/baritone and I'm SO glad we got him on the East now. However not having Dustin playing the third guitar during some of the instrumentals was kind of a missing element.
(12-20-2022, 01:03 PM)fraroc Wrote: [ -> ]I also really dug Christmas Carousels, the entirely new song that opened the second set. If the long-rumored new TSO Christmas album comes out, I hope the new song is on it!
"long-rumored new TSO Christmas album"?? I think thats fans wishful thinking.