11-20-2017, 02:01 AM
Review of the Allentown show from the area newspaper (http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/lehig...story.html)
REVIEW: Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a big show at Allentown's PPL Center
It’s hard to write about a Trans-Siberian Orchestra show and not use the word “big.”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s show Saturday at Allentown’s PPL Center was big — and not just in its eight-member band accompanied by a six-member local string section and nine vocalists. Or its production — a huge stage, wall-to-wall screens covered with high-density images and risers that lifted up out of the stage and a walkway that rose above the crowd.
The show also was big in scope. In 27 songs over two hours and 25 minutes, TSO presented not only the lushly orchestrated progressive rock versions of Christmas songs for which it’s best known, but also a rock opera/theatrical play, some blues and even traditional Christmas music thrown in.
The concert was offered in three parts. First was an introduction that gave an indication of what was to come: the stage covered in roiling fog, flames, five musicians up on those risers, lots of lasers and even glittery “snow” falling from the ceiling as the group played three of those prog-rock songs.
The middle was TSO’s 10-song soundtrack to the 1999 TV movie “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” with scenes playing on those screens and narration by too-dramatic storyteller Brian Hicks.
That segment brought new staging, a theater facade, and the music TSO does best, a mash-up of “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night” with a wailing guitar solo, and a prog-rock combo of “Good King Wenceslas” and “Joy to the World.”
The night’s best was “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24),” TSO’s first charting song (and only hit) from 1996. It was the concert’s payoff, with that walkway hovering over the crowd and so much fire on stage that the heat was felt halfway through the crowd.
“Christmas Canon (On This Very Christmas Night),” with four female singers, was elegant, even with a rock treatment. “First Snow” was uplifting, and the guitarists went out to play in the nearly sold-out crowd. (The band’s dollar-per-ticket donation to charity totaled $8,122 for the first of two shows, suggesting the crowd’s size.)
Surprisingly, two songs that strayed furthest from the TSO formula were among the best. The far more traditional “Promises to Keep” was sacred and touching, and “Music Box Blues,” a straight-up blues offering from a female vocalist, also was the least traditionally Christmas. Oddly, a later “Christmas Nights in Blue” by a male singer, also far from Christmas, was almost Broadway.
Other songs also weren’t as successful. “What Child is This” came off as overwrought, and a breathy, deep-voiced “For the Sake of Our Brother” was uninspiring until it morphed into “O Come All Ye Faithful,” which with the same treatment was very good. An operatic and dramatic “Carmina Burana” seemed out of place.
The show’s final segment was a 14-song “Best of TSO,” with band members again going into the crowd on the starting “Siberian Sleigh Ride.”
TSO briefly paid tribute to two members who died this year — bassist David Zablidowsky (killed in a July bus crash that also claimed area singer Janet Raines) and TSO founder Paul O’Neill, to whom it dedicated a slow and intense “Safest Way Into Tomorrow.”
But the show’s last segment leaned far more on effects, with a plethora of flames on “Wizards in Winter” and “Madness of Men” and the risers again on “The Mountain.”
The show ended with a reprise of “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” amid a shower of sparks, fire and even fireworks — a big close to a big show.
Another big thing about the show, the crowd, seemed to catch PPL Center by surprise. For the first show, five lines all stretched around the building, with a wait some people said was an hour, making them miss part of the show. One culprit seemed to be a ban on large purses, which made people have to rejoin the line after taking them back to cars.
REVIEW: Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a big show at Allentown's PPL Center
It’s hard to write about a Trans-Siberian Orchestra show and not use the word “big.”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s show Saturday at Allentown’s PPL Center was big — and not just in its eight-member band accompanied by a six-member local string section and nine vocalists. Or its production — a huge stage, wall-to-wall screens covered with high-density images and risers that lifted up out of the stage and a walkway that rose above the crowd.
The show also was big in scope. In 27 songs over two hours and 25 minutes, TSO presented not only the lushly orchestrated progressive rock versions of Christmas songs for which it’s best known, but also a rock opera/theatrical play, some blues and even traditional Christmas music thrown in.
The concert was offered in three parts. First was an introduction that gave an indication of what was to come: the stage covered in roiling fog, flames, five musicians up on those risers, lots of lasers and even glittery “snow” falling from the ceiling as the group played three of those prog-rock songs.
The middle was TSO’s 10-song soundtrack to the 1999 TV movie “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” with scenes playing on those screens and narration by too-dramatic storyteller Brian Hicks.
That segment brought new staging, a theater facade, and the music TSO does best, a mash-up of “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “O Holy Night” with a wailing guitar solo, and a prog-rock combo of “Good King Wenceslas” and “Joy to the World.”
The night’s best was “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24),” TSO’s first charting song (and only hit) from 1996. It was the concert’s payoff, with that walkway hovering over the crowd and so much fire on stage that the heat was felt halfway through the crowd.
“Christmas Canon (On This Very Christmas Night),” with four female singers, was elegant, even with a rock treatment. “First Snow” was uplifting, and the guitarists went out to play in the nearly sold-out crowd. (The band’s dollar-per-ticket donation to charity totaled $8,122 for the first of two shows, suggesting the crowd’s size.)
Surprisingly, two songs that strayed furthest from the TSO formula were among the best. The far more traditional “Promises to Keep” was sacred and touching, and “Music Box Blues,” a straight-up blues offering from a female vocalist, also was the least traditionally Christmas. Oddly, a later “Christmas Nights in Blue” by a male singer, also far from Christmas, was almost Broadway.
Other songs also weren’t as successful. “What Child is This” came off as overwrought, and a breathy, deep-voiced “For the Sake of Our Brother” was uninspiring until it morphed into “O Come All Ye Faithful,” which with the same treatment was very good. An operatic and dramatic “Carmina Burana” seemed out of place.
The show’s final segment was a 14-song “Best of TSO,” with band members again going into the crowd on the starting “Siberian Sleigh Ride.”
TSO briefly paid tribute to two members who died this year — bassist David Zablidowsky (killed in a July bus crash that also claimed area singer Janet Raines) and TSO founder Paul O’Neill, to whom it dedicated a slow and intense “Safest Way Into Tomorrow.”
But the show’s last segment leaned far more on effects, with a plethora of flames on “Wizards in Winter” and “Madness of Men” and the risers again on “The Mountain.”
The show ended with a reprise of “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” amid a shower of sparks, fire and even fireworks — a big close to a big show.
Another big thing about the show, the crowd, seemed to catch PPL Center by surprise. For the first show, five lines all stretched around the building, with a wait some people said was an hour, making them miss part of the show. One culprit seemed to be a ban on large purses, which made people have to rejoin the line after taking them back to cars.