TSO in 2020

[SammyGIII]

Has anybody noticed that the songs credits at the end of the stream differ from the well-known ones? I don't remember them by heart but I know that Believe was definitely written by both the Oliva brothers and Paul O'Neill.

It made me search for the original CEAOS booklet. One of the surprising things I learnt there is that Chris didn't record anything on that album. Does anybody have any onfo about that? Why he would be the only one ommitted from the whole band? I thought he and Al were responsible for all the guitars on all the records with some of the touring members contributing parts on the most recent ones.

Chris Olivia died in 1993 due to a car accident. Since his death, Jon and Paul have used his guitar recordings in other Savatage albums, a couple Trans-Siberian Orchestra songs and Jon Oliva’s other projects outside of those two bands. Chris’s Caffery, on the other hand, and Paul O’Neil (among a few others) did guitars for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra albums alongside with Al. Also a side note: They used the Savatage version of Believe in the credits of the livestream.

Not sure if that clears anything up for you.

Not exactly. I'm familiar with Savatage's history and I know how Criss Oliva died and that he was replaced by Alex Skolnick to play solos on Handful Of Rain album and on subsequent tour. He then left because he felt like hired gun and couldn't participate on writing the music. So that was the time when Chris Caffery finally came back to Savatage full time. Plus they hired Al Pitrelli, I guess to have a star name in line up, since the band was still struggling to really break through.

I was talking about the songs credits that you can see in the end subtitles of the Christmas Eve And Other Stories stream. Some of the songs have different songwriters compared to the album's booklet! And I noticed that thanks to Believe, which was definitely written by both Oliva brothers and Paul O'Neill but here in the stream it only says Paul O'Neill.
And while I was comparing the songwriting credits of the first TSO album, I found out that Chris Caffery didn't play on it at all. He is only mentioned the "thanks to" note. I though the whole Savatage went and recorded the first  TSO album. Well at least he probably plays in Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24 as it was taken from the Savatage album.

Oh ok, that makes more sense. I thought you were still talking about Criss Oliva (I shoulda checked the spelling) I wouldn’t know why Caffery wouldn’t play on ceaos at all other than 12/24. And I can’t say anything about the miss credit for “Believe” That was probably  the mistake of whoever made the credits. And the different song writers on some of their other songs, it could be that way because of the slightly different arrangements of each song, so someone must’ve written live arrangements for the songs? I don’t know to be honest. It could’ve just been the error of whoever produced the credits.