12-20-2022, 01:03 PM
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.
-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.