I Don't Know Where Transiberia Is

But I know I want to go.

Saturday night, my mother took us all to see The Transiberian Orchestra. I know absolutely nothing about them. All I know is this video, which I imagine we've all seen:


At this point, I was thinking that it would just be.... an orchestra. We'd go sit and watch a bunch of people in tuxedos play weird music. I was wrong.

My first clue was when I found out it was being held in the college basketball stadium. It was at about this point that I began to fear that my "nice evening out" clothes were going to be overkill. I revised my attire and off we went. At the doors, I noticed signs saying "WARNING: flashing lights and strobes in effect". Ok, so it's going to be a bunch of people in tuxedos playing weird music while lights flash.

Well... yeah. Only not quite like i thought:



It's ROCKSTARS in tuxedos playing weird music! These guys just rocked it right out. The first half kind of dragged, but by my fifth seizure, I was hooked. And I wasn't alone! People all around me were going absolutely crazy. A lady in front of me was dancing and screaming and singing along. At first I thought she was drunk. By the end of the evening, I actually thought she might be slightly off her rocker and felt a little bad. The guys behind me couldn't stop yelling "YEEEEAAAAHHH!!!" People were dancing, singing along, even shouting the guys' names! These guys have groupies!

The first section was a whole long story. It was narrated by a guy who could put Isaak Hayes to shame, smoothest voice I've ever heard:


I wasn't quite following along, and when I compared notes with my family later, all we could agree on was that Santa was drunk in a bar at some point:

(At the show we saw this guy had long white hair)

At the end of the Christmas story, our narrator returned and told us all, "merry Christmas", and blew a kiss out to the audience. As the lights faded to black, I heard the guy behind me say, softly and with feeling, "merry Christmas to you man... merry Christmas to you".

Then they started rocking out for serious. It was an hour or so of guitar solos, blinding flashing lights, all interspersed with Christmas carols. Every one of the guys had long hair, making me wonder if it's a requirement. Every one of them played his solo with the intensity of Jimi Hendrix, even if it WAS "Silent Night" they were playing. You couldn't help but love it. Add in the 4 scantily clad girls singing and dancing, another chick playing an electric violin like a crazy person, and it was just pure gold.