Tweaking holiday traditions is tricky business.
There has to be just enough fruit in the cake, after all, or nut in the meg or egg in the nog. The partridge probably wouldn’t work the same in a cherry tree.
But this winter, Trans-Siberian Orchestra has made some changes for its 26th mostly annual (save the pandemic year) tour, and they’re definitely for the better.
TSO certainly hasn’t been static over the years, mind you, since its inaugural tour in 1999, a seven-city jaunt that stopped at the Fillmore Detroit (now the State Theatre). The orchestral rock troupe — and its late founder Paul O’Neill — has famously embraced the latest in special effects technology, putting something free under the visual tree while maintaining the fundamental look and feel of the show. And it’s hardly broke; TSO remains a touring box office leader any given year.
And while this year’s outing — which played two shows Saturday, 27, at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena — stays true to TSO’s bombastic spirit, it offers more significant changes than many of its predecessors, making for a production that’s more refreshed than rebooted.
Among the most evident switches was different positioning for the 24 performers (including seven locally based string players) on stage, with the 10 singers occupying the raised wings on either side of the stage.
There were also more hydraulic lifts to raise the vocalists and instrumentalists, while the video arrays on the three floor-to-ceiling screens were even more refined.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Chris Caffery, left, and Roddy Chong perform Saturday. Dec. 27, at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena (Photo by Stacey Sherman)
A healthy dose of different material helped as well; 16 of the night’s 26 songs differed from 2024, including the show-opening “Night Enchanted” and “Winter Palace,” while a five-song sampling from TSO’s “Beethoven’s Last Night” rock opera — celebrating its 25th anniversary — brought classics-quoting selections such as “A Last Illusion,” “The Dreams of Candlelight,” “This Is Who You Are” and “Beethoven” back into the mix. TSO predecessor Savatage — which toured Europe and South America earlier this year — was also celebrated with its power ballads “Believe” and “Sleep,” the latter paired with Black Sabbath’s “Changes” as a tribute to O’Neill.
The instrumental aspect of the band also took greater precedence this year, especially during laser- and pyrotechnic-laden epics such as “First Snow,” “Wizards in Winter,” “A Mad Russian’s Christmas” and, of course, “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24), which was played twice. All gave guitarists Chris Caffery and Joel Hoekstra and violinist Roddy Chong plenty of room to play — and, at times, to roam into the audience, the former two even mounting a raised second stage at the back of the arena floor during the Carl Orff’s operatic “O Fortuna.”
Musical director Derek Weiland and fellow keyboardist Mee Eun Kim, meanwhile, traded licks on the playful “Wish Liszt (Toy Machine Madness).”
There were vocal standout moments as well — notably by John Brink, who delivered transportive renditions of William Chatterton Dix’s “What Child is This?” — part of the “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve” recitation early in the show — and “This is Who You Are.” Russell Allen offered moving performances of “Good King Joy” and “This Christmas Day,” while Georgia Napolitano held up her signature “Promises to Keep.”
All told, it was another big rock spectacle (with contributions made to Gilda’s Club and the Salvation Army) that kept the holiday spirit warm — literally, when the columns of fire filled the stage.
And it gave fans every reason to start the countdown for next year’s visit, which will mark the 30th anniversary of TSO’s formation and first recordings — which should provide a reason for something even more spectacular.
