I will preface this review by saying that the auditorium center is one of the worst possible venues to see any musical performance. Having seen a fair number of events at said venue, I have concluded that it has roughly the same acoustic quality as my closet. In short, you will be hard pressed to find another supposedly legitimate venue with such a dead sound. No offense to the Freemasons (it is their grand lodge of Rochester) but it truly is an acoustically abysmal venue.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra's show is quite a bit like a rock opera. It's long, it is obvious that all the musicians are talented, the crowd is diverse and yet it still feels remarkably clichéd. While the music was a refreshing take on some of the quintessential Christmas tunes, the set's 2.5 hour length seemed to serve only to highlight the TSO's relatively single-minded music paradigm. It seemed to be something to the extent of "hey! I've got an idea, let's do an arena rock version of a Christmas carol with some updated, yet overdone lyrical ideas." For the first hour and a half it was a nice novelty, after that it just got repetitive. I believe that a large contributor to the repetitive sound of the TSO was the fact that the string section, comprised of some of Rochester's best players, was totally inaudible. Whoever was responsible for micing and mixing, seriously dropped the ball this time. The utter lack of any orchestral sound, aside from that of the TSO's two Korg Triton keyboards, created a feel that was undeniably butt-rock. Their stage presence did little to try and dissuade anyone from that opinion.

Dressed in identical, long tailed, tuxedos, the various members of TSO actually looked quite a bit like classical musicians, save for Chris (lead guitar) who still looked like a heavy metal rocker, but in a tuxedo. However, once they started doing back-to-back poses and accentuating the ends of phrases with high kicks, it was obvious that many hadn't forgotten their days in Savatage. Even in some of the most serious passages I couldn't help but keep expecting someone to say "Turn it up to 11!" or to see a miniature Stonehenge lowered from the sky, complete with dancing midgets. For those of you who are now questioning the legitimacy of my drug-free lifestyle claims, I suggest you see the classic film This is Spinal Tap. Overall, the stage presence was undeniably that of hair/heavy metal band. It did nothing to help their standing as professional musicians. However, one aspect of the performance did stand out in a wonderful way.

Whoever did the lighting for this show, you are to be commended. It was a light show that would make the late Dr. Tim Leary proud. Whether it was rapidly scrolling intelligent lights, banks of strobes or just simple banks of colored cans, it was an awe-inducing lighting job that was truly outstanding. This was truly a show to be proud of, nice going light crew.

In 25 words or less, here's a summary. New X-Mass tunes good. Clichés bad. Lighting good. Butt-rock bad. 2.5 hour set bad. TSO good. Mannheim Steamroller better.