Are you ready to roooooccccccccccccck Toronto?

Ahh yes, in case you were wondering what you would get if you mixed a guitar heavy 80’s metal band, Christmas, a string section and a narrated story together (and really, who hasn’t?) you would probably end up with… chaos? Well probably chaos. But if it wasn’t chaos it would likely be something like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Four of us saw them tonight at the ACC. Overall the show was impressive. The production, lighting, sound and theatrics were top notch. The show seem divided in two halves. The first half was based on a narrated Christmas themed story played to music. It was the weaker half of the show. At times I found it pretty dry. The 15 minute acoustic guitar ballad was hard to sit through. In the true metal tradition most of the vocalists were ‘over-the-top’… It was like Canadian Idol ~ METAL ~ edition… None of the vocalists impressed me that much. The narrator and Jay Pierce having the best voices in my option. The others seemed to be lacking something. Especially the women who seemed more suited to singing 80s hair band tunes. Fortunately the show was about music and that is where TSO shined the brightest by far.

Most of the second half of the show jumped around between various vocalist (and one opera singer) but focused mainly on instrumental music. When the boys got going they rocked pretty hard. They showcase the talents of each musician in some way. I enjoyed the drum solo. As soon as I arrived I was hoping they were going to let the drummer go. And they did. What a crazy drum set he had. Fun! It seemed to me that the core musicians must have played together awhile… or just that they are simply so good that they can be dropped into any band seamlessly. The show took advantage of nearly every metal cliche available but the band seemed to be having so much fun with it that it could hardly be held against them. A fun, energetic show that brought the rock.