Tour Title: Christmas Eve and Other Stories
Rating: 5 Skulls
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Tour Title: Christmas Eve and Other Stories
Rating: 5 Skulls |
Submitted by Pestilence (12/17/00, Performing Arts Center, Providence, RI):
It is Sunday late afternoon, and I am preparing to go to a metal show. I resist the temptation to don my favorite COF t-shirt, partly because I don’t know what kind of crowd to expect (and I am really not in the habit of scaring the unknowing general populace), but mostly to avoid the potential grief from my fiancée. We drive to Providence in what has to be an earthly manifestation of the utter chaos of hell, with wind and water traveling with speeds destructive enough to throw our car all over the highway. We feel lucky to arrive through the storm in one, or I guess two, pieces. The glowing billboard of the performing arts center looms in front of us as we prepare to enter a true metal forum, and the first thing I notice is that I appear to be among the vast minority. There are all sorts of people lined up outside the venue, many representing the true metal community, but they are easier to pick out of the crowd because they are just like me. The rest of the crowd is filled with families dressed as if attending a holiday ballet (or whatever other kinds of events go on in these, dare I say, more wholesome venues?), or simply older business crowd types who are hard to read as part of one scene or the other. It really hits me that I am attending what is for many a regular foray into cultured society. “Little do they realize” I think, as I chuckle to myself, but not for the pure spite of it. I really am truly impressed that these “normals” are going to experience what for them is surely the first taste of a world that exists mostly completely underground in the depths and fathoms that would otherwise remain forever unvisited.We get our beers and the usher leads us to our balcony seats. The old elegant theater is jam-packed with those awaiting the expected entertainment. Even though I am among an apparent minority, I don’t feel out of place at all because this is something that has always been mine, and I am more than happy to share such a glorious event with those unsuspecting around me. TSO takes the stage, and the crowd is warmly informed that this will be unlike any event they have seen. The band starts to play and the experience immediately becomes majestically resplendent. For the first few songs, the crowd is subdued, much like they are probably used to, but WE are all there too and our energy begins to infiltrate the crowd. The music is dead on as TSO takes us through the journey of their first Christmas album. No one misses a beat or a note and the musicians also feel the energy moving around as they begin to feed off of us, as well as each other. Between songs, and amongst the more than enthusiastic applause, catcalls and rebel yells begin to manifest in the atmosphere. The name “Savatage” rings clear more than once, as WE continue to make our presence known, and begin to carry the others along the journey.
Chris Caffery and Jeff Plate are the easiest Savatage members to pick out with their long hair, and in Chris’s case his less than conventional formal wear. Famine has to point out Alex Skolnick to me as his hair is short and his tuxedo is…well, just that. The story of the first album continues and the weaving metal riffs and chords, along with excellent percussion and the beautiful sound of many violins, permeate the air. The light show is also fantastic, better than any I have ever seen (if only these were the old days when reality was a more difficult concept to grasp).
But these wonders were to be expected. This is not just Savatage with an accompanying orchestra. It is a band with their own identity imperceptibly mixing the worlds of classical music with the world of metal. They have accomplished something Metallica never could and certainly never will. They have attracted mass numbers of music fans outside of our little world, rather than providing the serious levels of disappointment among those they are familiar with most (betrayers!).
As I ponder this thought, I observe some crazy interactions on stage and in the crowd. I notice one of the girls in the string section banging her head in time to the guitars. Then I notice the old woman in front of me. She and her husband were obviously discussing the possibility of escape early on in the show. We saw it, we knew it, and we laughed. This is certainly not what they expected on this night of holiday celebration. But now I look down in front of me... and the old woman is banging her head. I don’t even know if she realizes what she is doing, but that itself is the real magic of this night. It has nothing to do with rubbing a little metal into the faces of the usual nay sayers, and it really has nothing to do with the Christian themes coming from TSO themselves. It has to do with people coming together and creating positive energy of togetherness and pure joy. As this revelation begins to form somewhat vaporously in my mind, the music stops, the crowd roars its approval and Chris begins to speak. And what he says is exactly what my mind is trying to put the final touches on. He tells us all that he feels the energy, and no one can argue because you can almost smell it in the air. He tells us that he has spent most of his life in hard rock bands (It's metal, Chris! Come on dude!), but it was not until he began to play with TSO that he finally realized the truth. It is the love of music that brings us all together; this is the only magic that is important here. It is not metal vs. everything else... it is simply music and more simply put, art.
After the first story ends, TSO continues to play. Several tracks from the second Christmas album make an appearance along with some songs from Beethoven’s Last Night. Even their work from "The Grinch" bellows from the stage. The energy is there the whole time, and smiles cannot be wiped from a single face. I leave ecstatic from the experience knowing that what has brought us all together this night is the simple magic of music, and more importantly the commonly misrepresented world of METAL! Hail to that, and holiday wishes to all; whatever your beliefs may be.
Submitted by garthg (12/16/00, Tower Theatre, Philadelphia, PA):
How do you get a bunch of middle-age squares to cheer madly for the guitarist from Savatage? Call it Trans-Siberian Orchestra and get it lots of adult radio airplay. The Tower Theatre in Philly was sold out with a very interesting crowd. Tons of people in their 40's, 50's and 60's with their teeenage kids, mixed in with lots of metalheads wearing every piece of Savatage gear imaginable, throwing up devil horns and shouting. We showed up about 15 minutes before showtime and had great seats, about 10-12 rows back. The show opened with a complete rendition of Christmas Eve and Other Stories, complete with a live narrator to fill in the story. This was played straight through with no banter or interruptions. Smoke machines were working way overtime, and they had a huge lightshow that should have carried an epilepsy warning. I'm figuring that TSO is full of guys whose main bands can't afford the big light shows so they were overcompensating here.The music sounded great, though the orchestra could have been a bit louder, they got a little overshadowed by the band, but every member sounded on. The band included Chris Caffery and Jeff Plate from Savatage, Alex Skolnick, Robert Kinkel on keys (the co-producer of the TSO albums) and Paul O'Neill did a walk-on appearance at the end of the show. Caffery was the ringleader on stage and had the crowd whipped up. I was amazed how loud the crowd was, considering the average age had to be just over 40. My friend joked how she thought I was some sort of rocker, yet I took her to a concert full of old people. Nothing like seeing a crowd of old people cheering for a guy with a flying V guitar, though.
So, after Christmas Eve Caffery came out and did a bunch of audience banter and was totally on. They then did a few songs from The Christmas Attic and (what I was hoping for) Beethoven's Last Night. Interestingly, they only did one song from Beethoven in the pre-encore set, and it was a Mozart tune. But, they did two or three more tracks in the encore. They also played the track they did for "The Grinch" which I hadn't heard before. It had a cool re-interpretation of the Whoville's "Welcome Christmas" song. They also said they're trying to get a Beethoven's Last Night tour together for 2001, something I'm aniously awaiting.
Overall, a great show. It's a pretty pompous, melodramatic form of music, so some times they were so far over the top they couldn't even see the top any more. But it was tons of fun.
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