TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA Founder PAUL O'NEILL Talks Stage Production - "We Basically Hire These Engineering Kids Right Out Of College..." 
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Trans-Siberian Orchestra Ready To Rock Again
Last year, guitarist Greg Lake, of Emerson Lake & Palmer fame, came out to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and its visually spectacular Christmas show. After witnessing the spectacle, he had one simple question for Paul O'Neill, founder of TSO: "Paul, how are you going to beat this next year?"
O'Neill, in a phone interview, said he had a realistic answer for Lake: "Greg, I have no ... idea." That was a year ago.
O'Neill is beginning to find out whether the 2007 edition of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra has topped last year's model. His combination rock band/orchestra has started its eight-week holiday tour.
As in years past, two full touring companies of TSO have hit the road, bringing the world's biggest collection of special effects/lighting and pyrotechnics along for the ride. O'Neill thinks this year's show has answered the challenge by going bigger and better than the 2007 edition.
"We just keep building the band every year," O'Neill said, noting that several new musicians have been added to each of the touring ensembles. "(We're) again adding more special effects, more lighting, more pyro," he said. "Every year we try to do something no band has done before."
But he also knows that each year, it gets more difficult to live up to the standards set by previous tours.
"It's getting harder and harder as time goes on to impress not just adults, but even kids," O'Neill said. "When I grew up, you had comic books and you had movies and you had black-and-white TV. Kids these days have 'Halo' and all these video games, digital TV. Not only kids, but adults demand so much more input per 60 seconds, (with their short) attention spans, that it's a lot harder than it was in the past."
The good news is that technology works in favor of TSO's stage production, which now spans both a massive stage at the front of arenas and another stage at the back of the house.
"A lot of the things we do now in 2007, in 1997, we could not have done," O'Neill said.
To help continue to raise the bar visually, O'Neill has launched a research and development division dedicated to dreaming up new effects for TSO.
"We basically hire these engineering kids right out of college and we say look, see these offices, these are your offices and your computers," he said. "Your only job is to come up with something, a special effect for the stage show, the flight deck, and we'll pay the money to develop it, design it, etc., etc.
"And if only one in 20 or one in 10 make it to the stage, I still think we win."
One thing that won't be radically different this year is the musical program. As in 2005 and 2006, the first half of the show features the music from the 1996 CD, Christmas Eve & Other Stories. That was the first of a holiday trilogy that also includes 1998's The Christmas Attic and 2004's The Lost Christmas Eve.
As in past years, the second set from TSO is a full-on rock concert, featuring songs from those two holiday releases, as well as music from TSO's non-holiday rock opera, 2003's Beethoven's Last Night and a long-delayed new CD, The Nightcastle, which O'Neill said he hopes to release this summer.
"The great thing about it is every year, when the audience comes back, it's a totally new look that doesn't allow the eye to get bored," O'Neill said, noting the stage set is new for 2007. "And then with Christmas Eve & Other Stories being the first half of the rock opera, they get the comfort of the familiar as they're setting in, even though the entire stage set is completely changed. So they have a little something different and a little something the same. Then for the second half of the rock opera, we go into the catalog and mix and match and do different songs from the other albums."
O'Neill, long-time producer of the progressive metal band Savatage, formed TSO in 1996 around the concept of combining a hard rock group and orchestra. He has never skimped on anything related to TSO. The recorded music itself is big as life -- some might say grandiose and bombastic at times -- with upwards of 100 musicians contributing to each of the four CDs. The production is impeccable and aimed at achieving note-perfect performances throughout the CDs. And in a move that recalls the packaging of vinyl albums, TSO's CDs have come with elaborate artwork, lyrics and background information to help listeners follow the story lines of each CD.
The goal, both on album, and particularly with the live show, is to leave an indelible impression on fans.
"We don't want fans to walk away from a TSO show going, 'Man, that was a great show,' " O'Neill said. "We don't even want them to walk away saying, 'Man, that was the greatest show we've ever seen.' We want them to walk away saying, 'Man, we just ripped that band off blind.' "
(Thanks: wesnlisa)
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