Not a Siberian in the bunch....

TSO Buffalo '09 IX, originally uploaded by Jaquandor.

Last week, we attended one of the two performances staged here every year by the Trans Siberian Orchestra. If you haven't heard them, well, they're an odd mixture of classical music, traditional Christmas music, and arena rock. Electric guitars are joined by electric violinists and synthesizer artists and a drum set the size of Poughkeepsie, all fronted by a series of vocalists who all tend to sound like Meat Loaf after smoking a carton of Marlboro's.

You wouldn't think that this kind of thing could possibly work, but somehow it does, even though it is occasionally very odd. It ends up being a lot of fun, though. We like their music a lot, and the show was a great time, even if it started about twenty-five minutes late and ran a lot longer than we expected (it ended just before 11:00 pm, and we didn't get home until midnight).

One funny thing came after the first set, when one of the leaders stepped forward to introduce the members of the band. One of the group's founding members was there; he's from Buffalo. Two others that night were from Binghamton and Horseheads, both towns in the Southern Tier of New York, about three hours away. There's always a local connection, isn't there?

(The TSO has two touring groups, splitting the band's members equally, which is how they're able to have shows in so many cities in so short a time.)

I'm not sure we'll go see them every year, but we'll absolutely go again. I wanted to see lasers and fire and bright lights and rock band pyrotechnics, and I got all of those and more!