I recently saw the UBS Arena show and I thought it was pretty good. The fact that they opened up the show and the second set with a Savatage songs shows me that they want to slowly incorporate more of them into the Christmas tour setlist, which hey, I'm all for. The question is, would Caleb Johnson or John Brink risk shredding their vocal cords trying to do Jon Oliva's screams? lol
In terms of setlist, I liked this one better than last year although I really REALLY wish they would just stop with the medleys and just go back to doing full songs. Thats what annoyed me about 2021 is that they did 3/4ths of Mozart and Memories and only 1/4 of The Mountain as the finisher when in 2011, they did both songs live in their entirety. Heavy songs like O Fortuna and The Mountain are always welcome, I love the fact they brought back Joy Of Man's Desiring/Angels We Have Heard On High/Angel's Share again as that one was always one of my favorites. And I know I was bitching about the medleys but combining Dreams Of Fireflies with Queen Of The Winter Night was a pretty genius move, plus Natalya absolutley fucking NAILED it, I've unfortunately heard clips of some singers from TSO tours past absolutley butchering Queen Of The Winter Night given the fact the original Queen Of The Night aria one of the hardest peices for a soprano to pull off.
However, I will say, opening the show with a medley of The Lion's Roar and The Hourglass and opening the second set with Temptation Revelation did sound kind of redundant.
In terms of stage show, it was kind of an amalgamation of 2017's marquee drum riser with 2010's catwalks. I don't mind them reusing elements from past tours to save money, but I do hope that they'll change them up every so often.
In terms of setlist, I liked this one better than last year although I really REALLY wish they would just stop with the medleys and just go back to doing full songs. Thats what annoyed me about 2021 is that they did 3/4ths of Mozart and Memories and only 1/4 of The Mountain as the finisher when in 2011, they did both songs live in their entirety. Heavy songs like O Fortuna and The Mountain are always welcome, I love the fact they brought back Joy Of Man's Desiring/Angels We Have Heard On High/Angel's Share again as that one was always one of my favorites. And I know I was bitching about the medleys but combining Dreams Of Fireflies with Queen Of The Winter Night was a pretty genius move, plus Natalya absolutley fucking NAILED it, I've unfortunately heard clips of some singers from TSO tours past absolutley butchering Queen Of The Winter Night given the fact the original Queen Of The Night aria one of the hardest peices for a soprano to pull off.
However, I will say, opening the show with a medley of The Lion's Roar and The Hourglass and opening the second set with Temptation Revelation did sound kind of redundant.
In terms of stage show, it was kind of an amalgamation of 2017's marquee drum riser with 2010's catwalks. I don't mind them reusing elements from past tours to save money, but I do hope that they'll change them up every so often.