Written by These are clips from shows that the Trans-Siberian Orchestra performed during last year’s tour. This year’s tour is different yet, still amazing. These clips capture just one song from one show from dozens of songs done in dozens of shows by each touring group. One video from TSO West and one from TSO East. I did not take either of these videos, but the links will give the credit for these where it is due. Actually, the clip from Chloe Lowery (TSO West) is only part of the song, For The Sake Of Our Brother, because the crowd’s reaction and her reception were enough to move on. The other clip, performed by Erika Jerry (TSO East), one of my personal favorites, is the entire song. The songs are performed differently. The songs are performed mightily. The songs are performed with incredible passion, and outer worldly ability. Honestly, I cannot listen to either one of these without getting goose bumps and tearing up.
Imagine this. The show has been running for some time. Several songs have caught our attention. We wonder where this musical trip will take us next. The arena is mostly dark. The narrator speaks. Near silence persists as yet another amazing talent approaches the microphone. The crowd, made up of the young, the old, and every age in between, some know what is coming, but still many have no idea. Then the voice fills the arena and the song is peaceful, the melody catchy, but there’s more to come. Then in an angelic, beautiful, explosion of ability, tone, structure, depth and timing the voice turns it up too many notches to count. Instantly the words and the tune transport thousands of us to different places along our own personal timelines. Memories flood our minds, words crease our lips, smiles glisten beneath our tear soaked cheeks, and we wish each second to last longer. Our senses try to keep up with the unraveling of the closest thing many of us have ever experienced to musical and vocal perfection. Right there in front of us! Then if you’re still wondering why all of us love these people and the performances as much as we do; Listen to the words! The passion poured into the words that should mean so much to us. “…Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels!…oh come let us adore Him. Christ, the Lord!…” If the words and the performance, the passion and the execution, or ties that these tunes have directly to our emotional being, don’t grab us, and we don’t walk away somehow changed, then we are just flat asleep at the wheel. The peaceful song with the catchy melody ends and the crowds erupt in awe and appreciation of the performance we just witnessed and for the instantaneous re-connection to something far bigger than ourselves; maybe for the first time in a long time for many of us.
This is just one example of why I have lost count of the reasons why I love TSO so much. Enjoy. Merry Christmas!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_uE5F_OdTc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv_boIgCNHc