Trans-Siberian Orchestra Live!

Trans-Siberian Orchestra East
Allstate Arena, Rosemont
Saturday, December 9, 2006

By the time the second act of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s first Chicagoland show of the Christmas season fired up, audience members were either with them or against them.

Those with TSO East (Two TSOs – East and West – tour simultaneously throughout North America, each playing one or two shows a day throughout much of the Christmas season) had been treated to retro metal revisions of traditional Christmas carols set to off-Broadway theatrics, prog arrangements, and the beginnings of an other-worldly light show. Those against TSO had endured religious proselytizing, awkward song transitions, and a lifeless crowd. It was clear there were two camps. But as the second act forged ahead — minus the dividing narration of the first act — the mood lightened, the band let loose, and the crowd roared. It wasn’t the storybook harmony of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” but it was a guilty pleasure, constructed with odd consultation from The Ghost Of Metal Past.

Spotlights favored the diminutive, axe-wielding Chris Caffery, whose heavenward Flying V delivered as much cock rock as Christian rock. His bag of guitar toys and old Savatage squeal made him the Santa Claus of the day to the few yelping headbangers in attendance, and a comic relief to the rest of the suburban sampling. “I never went to college. The only thing that I got on my SATs was gum,” Caffery joked, pandering to the near-capacity crowd in a Rex Grossman jersey.

To separate the two acts, Caffery broke into Derek & The Dominos’ “Layla” with commanding alleyway strut. Alex Skolnick followed Caffery’s lead, unleashing a vintage double-neck as the stage filled with smoke and rainbows. The two cavorted off-leash with electric violinist Mark Wood and his glow-in-the-dark bow, trading screaming solos and dirty rhythms to Bob Kinkel’s. TSO’s lazers became one with Def Leppard’s heyday tricks, shooting thin beams into the nosebleeds. More and more, TSO went back to their youth.

Earlier, the band subdued this kind of rock boyishness. Even Caffery, forever child-like, donned a suit. TSO’s vigor was lost in the wildly uneven numbers of the first act, which at times wandered into R&B and diva territory (a cast of vocalists, male and female, made their unremarkable presence). Hand gestures to rouse the crowd might have triggered more of a response if loopy fretboard shred was the immediate focus of a band comprised in part by members of Savatage and Testament. But first and foremost, there was a plodding story to tell (involving an angel, booze, and war). Narrator Bryan Hicks slowly coached the crowd between songs. “The killing of one’s neighbor is something The Lord had never mentioned,” Hicks preached before “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24).” Granted, the song’s universal plea for peace deserves an introduction (envisioned during The Yugoslav Wars), but this pause in particular extended several minutes, effectively disarming the rock beasties within TSO. Luckily they would break out of their own prison later, and ramp up.

Contemporary born-agains whose last taste of live metal was Mötley Crüe in 1987 would have felt right at home inside the second act’s hair metal vortex. Tommy Lee’s rotating drum kit didn’t emerge from the sleaze rock catacombs, but two died-blonde vixen backup vocalists grinding back-to-back on a rising platform did. As if piloting a giant time machine, TSO turned Allstate Arena back into Rosemont Horizon. The show’s Girls Girls Girls vibe also conjured Pink Floyd from 1987, baking Rosemont with psychedelic lights, strobes, spark showers, and synchronous flashpots. Real snow even fell onto the crowd from machines hidden in the rafters. The indoor flurry paled in comparison to the 11 outdoor inches the audience dug through a week before, but the effect was charming. For a winter tour, it was quite wintery.

As expected, the elaborate “Wizards In Winter” performance played catch-up to the popular fan-made YouTube video of the song, which features tightly choreographed holiday lights on an Ohio house blinking in perfect symmetry to the festive beats and blasts of the instrumental jam. TSO one-upped their nerdy fan’s trickery by using flames instead of light bulbs to dazzle. Don’t try this at home, they should have warned, as the temperature inside Allstate Arena climbed during the dancing inferno’s rage. Caffery and Skolnick used muted power chords to allow for Kinkel’s toy Christmas keyboard atmospherics to flourish (think Danny Elfman). It was a rare insight into the live groundwork of founding member Kinkel, who mostly seemed lost in some unheard, thinking man’s epic.

Many of the graying former rockers in attendance brought much different kinds of babes with them to the big metal show this time around: their own children. The bushy-haired rocker chicks of Whitesnake lore seemed to have shapeshifted into their mothers. And the only scantily clad ladies in the house were onstage (perhaps the clearest giveaway that this wasn’t really the 1980s after all). “It’s your first concert. All I got was Bon Jovi and Cinderella,” said one father to his 6-year-old son. “And I was 18.”

The inclusion of Jesus Christ in rock music is nothing new, not even in terms of heavy metal (Stryper, Trouble, and others). The rock opera element might even detract from the religious message at hand, especially when promoted in TSO’s disjointed live manner, but that’s up for the faithful to decide. Though if the intention is to bring peace to upheaval through metal, TSO producer Paul O’Neill should review the feats of Scorpions, a secular band he previously managed. To many, “Wind Of Change” was the soundtrack to the fall of The Berlin Wall. It is doubtful that TSO, with the divisions inherent in religion, will ever be so largely unifying.

– Mike Meyer

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly