Trans-Siberian Orchestra record-setting "rock theater" tours sell out venues year after year and have cemented TSO's status as a must-attend, multi-generational, holiday tradition. Trans-Siberian Orchestra Creator, Lyricist and Composer, Paul O’Neill launched this project twenty years ago, not knowing that it would turn into a critically-acclaimed, multi-platinum, musical powerhouse. O’Neill exclaims, “…It’s just like we blink and two decades passed. Again, I would love to say that we planned for the Christmas trilogy to resonate like this, but it was just pure luck. Of course, we did everything backwards. Normally you have like five or six other platinum albums, then you take on Christmas. Of course, we took it on first and the rest of the year on later. It’s all worked out.”
Debuted last year to rave critical and fan reviews, and based on TSO's multi-platinum DVD and long running PBS fundraiser, "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve," follows the journey of a runaway who breaks into an abandoned vaudeville theater on December 24th. While seeking shelter from the cold, the teen is discovered by the theater's caretaker who uses the ghosts and spirits from the building's past to turn her life around. When O’Neill was asked why he decided to do the same program this year, “The amount of fan mail basically of people that loved it then asked if we were going to be doing it again. We exist for the fans. Two years in a row it really isn’t a lot when you consider we did Christmas Eve now for 13 years in a row. We kind of came to the decision that we were trying to shuffle them more just so again, never allow boredom to set in anyway, but it would be from the special effects on the flight deck to the story to the new singers, because we have a lot of new singers this year.”
TSO has cemented itself as one of the world's biggest rock acts, by playing approximately 2,000 shows for nearly 13 million fans, with tour grosses of more than $580 million, and selling in excess of 10 million albums and DVDs. As in all previous years, $1 to $2 of every ticket sold benefits select local charities. To date, in excess of $13 million has been distributed to worthy charities all across North America.
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a rock opera with the magic of Christmas and music. As O’Neill states, “The one thing I love about music is that it can effortlessly jump all the silly walls people put between themselves, be it nationality, be it economics, and be it whatever. When it jumps a generational wall that feels the best.”
Catch Trans-Siberian Orchestra tonight at U.S. Bank Arena. Shows are at 4p and 8p. Grab tickets HERE.
