Spectacular Trans-Siberian Orchestra lights up Arena
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra came to the HSBC Arena for two concerts on Saturday and, for the first show at least, rocked a venue filled with people willing to let the (mostly) ad hoc ensemble rock them.
The group’s visually spectacular presentation of a heavy metal yuletide has been a surefire crowd pleaser for the past couple of seasons and, as they’ve done in prior years, the TSO donated a portion of the ticket sales to a local charity with this year’s lucky recipient being Buffalo’s Women and Children’s Hospital.
Local lad Robert Kinkel, keyboardist and one of the guiding lights for the TSO concept, led a lineup that featured return engagements by guitarists Chris Caffery and Alex Skolnik, and narrator Bryan Hicks in addition to a sextet of singers, a rhythm section and some string players under the leadership of electric violinist Anna Phoebe.
The group has played before Western New York audiences a few times, and their fans know what to expect: traditional Christmas tunes warped by an abundance of amplified power chords, a mind-numbingly fanciful narrative and an arena-style light show that vies to be the most expressive part of the whole experience.
In fact, although the audience was putatively there for the spectacle of a mini-rock opera combining a bar, an angel and some unaware ne’er-do-wells searching for redemption, the whole project would have teetered even more on the edge of hair-metal cheesiness if not for that light show.
There was a truly impressive battery of lights mounted on computer-enabled rigging that could have doubled as the metal bones of George Lucas’ Millennium Falcon. The cabling holding the whole shebang up in the air probably had to support tons of weight, most of it suspended directly over the players, as laser beams flashed above the crowd and “smoke” curled around the feet of the performers.
Other notable effects included “snow” floating down onto the audience from the arena’s nether regions and a stellar backdrop with pinhole “stars” that shone brightly for some of the opera’s sequences, drawing audible “oohs” and “aahs” from the crowd.
When you get right down to it, the audience got exactly what it expected and wanted.
Same time, next year?
Concert Review
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Saturday in HSBC Arena.
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