Sunday, December 02, 2007

TSO

I am exhausted today. And a little hoarse from yelling my head off. And maybe my ears are a little sore, and my eyes a little blurry fron the light show & pyrotechnics.

At three o'clock my cousin called to say she didn't think she ccould make it out of her driveway. Mrs A's sister called to say she had infected sinuses and wouldn't make it, it was snowing hard and the streets were white. We had a couple of inches of snow.

I was beginning to get worried and pissed. They were predicting that it would be gone by Sunday night. Why the heck did it have to snow NOW? I had spent $500 on tickets as Christmas presents, and there was no way to get a refund.

It began to warm up, and at 6:00 my cousin called and said she could make it, as the street was clearing. I had counted on her to drive, as she has a seven passenger van. She said we could use her van as long as I would drive. Hell, I would have pushed the thing.

We just barely got there in time, because of traffic. It is usually a half hour drive, but it took us an hour. We were seated just as the show started.

I have heard from a couple of obviously misguided people that they thought it could not have been better than the 3:00 show. I have to say there is no way the first show could have been as good.

Consider that when they did the 3:00 show, they knew they had to reserve energy for the second show, so the first show was just like a warmup for the main event.

There were four generations of family there, and everyone thought the show was stupendolossal. There is really no way to convey the sights, sounds and yes smells.

I have liked the music for several years, and loved the videos on the internet, but there is no way to compare that to the total impact of the multi-media kick-ass Christmas pyrotechnic screaming guitar light show experience.

My mom is 81, and this is the first time she had been to anything like a rock show. I was a little concerned that it would be too much for her. But she was as thrilled as anyone else. Every performer was outstanding, My favorite was the chick that played the hot pink electric violin. Or maybe when they did the duelling Hendrix on the guitars, or when they did the duelling pianos (classical vs contemporary.) Or the twenty foot tall blasts of flames ( I could feel them from my chair). Or the fireworks during Christmas in Serejevo. Or ..........

Hell, I could go on for an hour. They had an amazing light setup, and light show. There were half a dozen fixtures that raised and lowered, turned and twisted and changed color. The whole backdrop was computer controlled lights. And the lasers were wonderful. There was so much going on that you really couldn't keep track of it all.

Oh yeah, there was music, too.

It was so special I woke up this morning with TSO in my head, and feeling like today should have been Christmas.

8 comments:

rennratt said...

I'm right there with you!

I went to my first TSO concert last year, and lost my voice and hearing.

I can't wait!

I was worthless the next day at work.

I took the day after off this year.

I'm so glad you got to go!

Al said...

Renn: Everybody ought to go at least once. My ears are STILL ringing and my vision is a little blurry.

Rick said...

TSO arranged the snow for people on the way to the 3pm show. (They have friends in high places.) Awesome, awesome shit.

Al said...

Rick: Well SOMEBODY arrange for it to be gone just in time for the 8:00 show. Them's SOME connections.

Michael said...

Clearly the 3pm show was the preferred show... entering the arena with snow falling as part of the pre-show festivities really set the mood.

The sad part is, we have to wait a year for them to return to Seattle... *sigh*

Al said...

Michael: As I said, the 3:00 show was just the WARMUP for the real show, which was the 8:00 show.

Too bad the date wasn't a little closer to the 25th.

Anonymous said...

MAN! I wish I could have seen that!

Al said...

NCP: and I wish you could have been there too.