What I Did On My Christmas Vacation

By Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler

Chapter 5 Homage to the Gibson Flying V Guitar

Too young to see Poison's 1990 Un-Skinny Bop tour, I feel that last week's Trans-Siberian Orchestra performance was a close proxy. I mean, most bands shy away from pyrotechnics these days for fear of repeating a "Great White Inferno" - not TSO - they're hard and shit with their rock opera style Christmas carols. I half expected to see Meatloaf appear on stage. You want Beethoven - dude, Beethoven never sounded so loud. Laser lights were synchronized with drum solos. There were sexy, slutty, sassy backup girls and some reject from the Coors playing violin. A young indie hipster like myself may expect to see the following retired formulaic ingredients at a TSO show:

• The Gibson Flying V Guitar

• Double Neck Guitar

• Long "Rock God" Hair
  

• "Air Guitar" enthusiastically played by audience members
• The spirit of the 80's
  

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a side project of the 80's band Savatage. Considerably more successful at playing other people's music than there own, they still get to tour (albeit 2 months of the year) and probably have earned a shit load of money for themselves. In case you're interested in re-discovering Savatage's earlier work here are some album covers.




-Scarlett