morpheus
12-22-2008, 05:42 PM
Trans-Siberian Orchestra sizzles; Mannheim Steamroller fizzles
Thursday, December 18, 2008
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When Chip Davis says there's really no comparison between his Mannheim Steamroller and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, he isn't kidding. Picture a cage match to the death between Godzilla and Barney, with Mannheim in purple.
The occasion for comparison is that the two Christmas music franchises played Pittsburgh last night -- the first time it's ever happened in the same city on the same night, says Davis. Lucky us, say all the people caught in the rush-hour gridlock.
The Mellon Arena was the stomping ground for a TSO spectacle that was Kiss-times-10. Trans-Siberian is a bizarre phenomenon: a metal band that rocked harder than Van Halen, playing to a matinee crowd that looked like it was there for Barry Manilow.
The two-fingered devil horn would have been the correct salute had it not been, like, an actual Christmas concert. The first-half was a sublimely melodramatic Christmas tale about finding the true meaning of the holiday, narrated with the stentorian voice of Bryan Hicks. Fortunately, there was no quiz about the plot on the way out, because my eyeballs were too busy popping out to pay full attention. The sheer quantity of bombast fell somewhere between laughable and jaw-dropping, mostly the latter.
The brilliance of TSO are these over-the-top pop-metal songs that all manage morph into familiar carols. Among the cast of 20-some performers on stage are two guitarists more fiery than the flashpots and a smoking hot violinist who might as well be a member of the X-Men team.
Ensuring that you're getting maximum bang for the buck are no less than nine singers, ranging from prototypical long-haired power ballad dudes to black blues belter Jay Pierce to a rock-chick hitting opera notes while she ran down the center aisle. Why they needed two or three guys who sang like Joe Cocker, I have no clue.
In the second half of the show, as the four female singers doubled as the Solid Gold dancers, the TSO rocked through "Wizards of Winter" (the song from the flashing-house commercial) and rolled over Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt and the "Carol of the Bells." If that sounds incredibly cheesy on paper, it is. But with the strobes, lasers, lights, fire and fog all timed to the riffs, it was the kind of cheese you've got to try at least once.
It was a much different atmosphere over at the Benedum, where Mannheim Steamroller, in the second of two nights, was taking on more of a Lawrence Welk-on-synths kind of vibe. That electronic "Deck the Halls" might have sounded 21st century in 1984, but now that we're here, your 6-year-old can do it on a $15 toy keyboard.
The Mannheim shtick is a melding of renaissance-style recorders and strings with electronic drums and keyboards, culminating in a sound just perfect for the background music at the department store -- and that's what it is, actually.
Watching it live is tiresome and not helped by the dull, low-budget video projections. During the second half, the band, not featuring Davis because he's recovering from surgery, even played behind a screen, with video of a Renaissance court in front of them.
Nothing against the musicians, because they all seemed adequate, but this Steamroller seemed more suited as the opening act for a Shakespeare play, and in terms of my evening, it got flattened by a Trans-Siberian locomotive.
http://www.chriscaffery.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=53261
one of the best i have ever attended-as i said in a previous thread
they said i had a gooooooood time!!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
When Chip Davis says there's really no comparison between his Mannheim Steamroller and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, he isn't kidding. Picture a cage match to the death between Godzilla and Barney, with Mannheim in purple.
The occasion for comparison is that the two Christmas music franchises played Pittsburgh last night -- the first time it's ever happened in the same city on the same night, says Davis. Lucky us, say all the people caught in the rush-hour gridlock.
The Mellon Arena was the stomping ground for a TSO spectacle that was Kiss-times-10. Trans-Siberian is a bizarre phenomenon: a metal band that rocked harder than Van Halen, playing to a matinee crowd that looked like it was there for Barry Manilow.
The two-fingered devil horn would have been the correct salute had it not been, like, an actual Christmas concert. The first-half was a sublimely melodramatic Christmas tale about finding the true meaning of the holiday, narrated with the stentorian voice of Bryan Hicks. Fortunately, there was no quiz about the plot on the way out, because my eyeballs were too busy popping out to pay full attention. The sheer quantity of bombast fell somewhere between laughable and jaw-dropping, mostly the latter.
The brilliance of TSO are these over-the-top pop-metal songs that all manage morph into familiar carols. Among the cast of 20-some performers on stage are two guitarists more fiery than the flashpots and a smoking hot violinist who might as well be a member of the X-Men team.
Ensuring that you're getting maximum bang for the buck are no less than nine singers, ranging from prototypical long-haired power ballad dudes to black blues belter Jay Pierce to a rock-chick hitting opera notes while she ran down the center aisle. Why they needed two or three guys who sang like Joe Cocker, I have no clue.
In the second half of the show, as the four female singers doubled as the Solid Gold dancers, the TSO rocked through "Wizards of Winter" (the song from the flashing-house commercial) and rolled over Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt and the "Carol of the Bells." If that sounds incredibly cheesy on paper, it is. But with the strobes, lasers, lights, fire and fog all timed to the riffs, it was the kind of cheese you've got to try at least once.
It was a much different atmosphere over at the Benedum, where Mannheim Steamroller, in the second of two nights, was taking on more of a Lawrence Welk-on-synths kind of vibe. That electronic "Deck the Halls" might have sounded 21st century in 1984, but now that we're here, your 6-year-old can do it on a $15 toy keyboard.
The Mannheim shtick is a melding of renaissance-style recorders and strings with electronic drums and keyboards, culminating in a sound just perfect for the background music at the department store -- and that's what it is, actually.
Watching it live is tiresome and not helped by the dull, low-budget video projections. During the second half, the band, not featuring Davis because he's recovering from surgery, even played behind a screen, with video of a Renaissance court in front of them.
Nothing against the musicians, because they all seemed adequate, but this Steamroller seemed more suited as the opening act for a Shakespeare play, and in terms of my evening, it got flattened by a Trans-Siberian locomotive.
http://www.chriscaffery.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=53261
one of the best i have ever attended-as i said in a previous thread
they said i had a gooooooood time!!!