You Are Viewing Music, Arts and Literature

Image by greekchickie via Flickr

Ken and I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra (or TSO) at the Bilo Center in Greenville today.

I’ve enjoyed their music vis-a-vis the internet for some time and flipped over the artwork done for the Wizard in Winter album a couple of years ago. I had never seen them perform nor talked to anyone who had, but when I saw the ad for tickets, I asked Ken if we could go.

As far as I knew, he had never even heard any of their music, but when I told him it had classical elements in it, he was all for going and we quickly secured the tickets — good thing too, as the concerts were both sold out within 48 hours of them going on sale.

Now, you may not realize it, but TSO is not from Siberia or even Russia. (that fact totally disappointed Ken) It’s a band formed by a trio of New York musicians in 1996. It’s name was inspired by the Trans Siberian Railroad which transverses many cultures much like music does according to Robert Kinkel one of the band’s founders and it’s music director.

On the road, the “orchestra” is more of a band with a small strings section that is often comprised of local symphony musicians along with the band’s own lead violinist and a second violinist, a drummer with the most awesome set of drums I’ve ever seen in my life, a bass guitarist who is simply phenomenal, two keyboardists and two guitarists. In the studio, it’s a full 60 piece orchestra, so the recordings do sound “fuller” than the live performances do.

But that doesn’t mean the live performance is anything to miss out on.

I was amazed at the sheer energy these musicians bring to the stage. You cannot believe how pumped you get from the music. Said music is very well choreographed with a light show and pyrotechnics and let me tell you, that is REAL fire as we were roasting by the time the show was over!

Now, I am not a “heavy metal” fan at all — it’s just not my thing and TSO does have elements that could be classified as heavy metal — the guitar feedbacks for one and the sheer volume for another are both trademarks of heavy metal bands, but they take classical music and turn it on it’s ear. In no way do they ruin it — the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker piece in this year’s music is very recognizable, but there were no ballerinas going enpointe on stage, just the violinists doing high kicks and deep knee bends.

One thing I could advise the band on — all the head tossing and hair whipping done is all fine and good, but not every single number. You’re going to give those poor girls whiplash. Surely there is some other bit they can do as an alternate…leg splits or something.

I regret that I didn’t take my camera –  or even my cell phone — in to the show as they apparently were not at all put off by people taking photos and videos of it (unlike some other bands I can name who are absolute nazis about such things). And there were many notable and photograph-worthy moments during the concert.

The first two thirds (they called it half, but it was over two hours into the 3-1/2 hour long concert), was comprised of a narrative Christmas story that highlighted a dozen or more of their compositions. The narrator had a wonderful voice and was excellent. Then they introduced the band members and gave a bit of history, then started the second part of the show with a drum solo by that drummer with the awesome set of drums.

You truly had to see this drum set to appreciate what I’m talking about.

Along with all the “normal” drums you see in a set (bass drum, snare, cymbals and trap) there were two things that looked like the horn part of a tuba, two swirly metal things on either side and an array of different sized drums in a semi-circle around him. His solo was a true showpiece of his skill.

One truly cool thing about this band that I haven’t yet mentioned (but can you tell that its coming??) is the fact that they donate $1 from each ticket sold to a local children’s charity group. Tonight’s box office draw saw them writing a check for some $8,000+  to the charity of choice.  Another really cool thing is that the tickets were not horribly expensive desptite the fact that this show has all the earmarks of being a show that costs a fair amount to produce. I think our tickets were $50 each and we had great seats close to the main stage (they had two stages at either end of the arena). It’s no wonder they have the kind of following they do. There have been a lot of “headliners” come through Greenville in the last few years whose tickets are in the $100-$200 range and they don’t sell out their concerts. TSO didn’t have an empty seat in the place.

So, on my recommendation, if you’ve never seen the Trans Siberian Orchestra, like classical music to some degree and aren’t a “purist”, then going to see them would be a treat. Well, except for the hair tossing…

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Ok, with a name like that and being a dog lover like I am, it was a contest just made for me, right?

So, after reading this blog and it’s contest winners’ submissions for the past few weeks, I finally got brave and entered. I didn’t win, but that’s OK — I’ll enter again and we’ll see what happens. I can be competitive.

As per the rules of the contest, I have to include the links to the winners on my blog, and so without any more chewing the fat (or searching for the best fat burner), here they are:

Image by carf via Flickr

In my life I am sometimes blind
my eyes cannot see beyond the pain within me
I grieve for lost love and the passing of time
That turns us all to memory

In my life I am sometimes deaf
I cannot hear the music
Only death dirges  or songs of love lost
Fill my ears with their melodies

In my life I am sometimes mute
I cannot speak nor commune
My heart is so heavy it won’t allow
The words to leave my brain

In my life I can often see
The beauty of nature that surrounds me
In those times I don’t think of me
Or sorrows that abound

In my life I can often hear
Music like rhapsodic symphony
In those times I don’t think of me
Or losses that abound

In my life I can often speak
My voice is heard by many
In those times I don’t think of me
Or horrors that abound.

Of all the times in my life
When I feel it’s the most worthy
I’m not thinking of me but only of others
Whose needs there are aplenty

Of all the times in my life
When I feel it’s least worthy
I’m thinking only of myself
And pain and sorrow are my harvest.

And so life’s lessons seen in this
Concentrate on things outside myself
That brings joy, love and self worth
To turn inwards only brings destruction.

Image by leafar. via Flickr

I’ve been asked to be a moderator for Entrecard. And yeah, that’s certainly crazy on their part! Me — moderator material — LMAO.

Oh, don’t worry, my head isn’t going to swell or anything and I’m not about to mess with anybody just ’cause I’m that way, but I have to tell you something you may not know….there are some flat-out CRAZY people blogging out there!

One of the things I’ve been doing is reviewing new blogs in the system to see if they meet the quality constraints. I’ve read blogs that are entirely (and I mean there were over 100 posts!) posts about different brands/styles of sneakers! Number one, I had no idea there were that many choices — I tend to stick to pretty basic footwear when you’re talking about sneakers, but holy moley!

And there was the one describing her bondage experience — that went on for about 10 posts…Ahem– yeah I had to read them ALL, yannow? ‘Cause well they um….um…. well she had to have a minimum number first off, and then um….um….um….she had to not have any pornographic pictures and um….um…um…Oh yeah! No popups or whole page “skip this” ads and no audio (I kinda hated there was no audio — or video for that matter). And to think I thought the phone sex blog was “out there”…

And there are people who are so totally IN to t.v. shows they are writing blogs about each episode — and not just soaps either! Ghost Whisperer has one complete with paper dolls you can link up with your printers interface to print off for the kiddies. I didn’t see one for CSI, but hey — they’ve been going on for so long you could write about them for YEARS.

And speaking of paper dolls - one site that I’ve been dropping on ever since I joined EC is Paperkraft. I thought it would go by the wayside pretty quickly, but here it is a year later and not only does that blogger post daily, sometimes they have several posts per day! Who woulda thunk there were so many folded paper toys and figuines out there?! Not me, that’s who!

I’m not too sure about some of the templates I saw –of course there were some that were nice but then there are all these PINK ones. Mind you, I have nothing against the color pink but when the background is one shade and even the print is pink, it gets to be a bit much. I would attribute that to something like my granddaughter might have done when she was 6, but these seemed to be young 20-ish ladies.

I guess that no matter what your interests are, you’re likely to find someone on Entrecard who is blogging about it.

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