My wife has always wanted to see one of the traveling Chrismas music shows, so we attended the Mannheim Steamroller concert in Portland on the Saturday before Christmas. I think we realized about two songs in that we really wanted to attend the other traveling Chrismas show - the Trans Siberian Orchestra. I had a premonition before the show when I was reading the program and got the instinct impression that Mannheim Steamroller was trying a little too hard to justify their existence.
How many bands consider it necessary to make points about how many hotel room nights they've booked or how many yard of video screen they've hung or how more many records they sold than Springsteen and Bon Jovi? I saw Springsteen in April and he didn't mention anything about the band's history or that he had sold more records than someone - he just played (really well, I might add).
It really hit home when one of the keyboard players introduced himself as the "featured keyboard player" and then introduced the other keyboard player - who happened to be his wife. Is his wife less valuable to the band because she's not "featured"? I can't imagine that going down too well in my house. And who cares who the featured keyboard player is anyway? Very odd.
They are perfectly fine musicians. The women playing recorder was awesome. I think we were just expecting a little more rock-n-roll and a lot less of the medieval vibe. I did check around with some friends a couple of days later who all said that the show we should have seen was the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Now that could wind up being equally lame for a whole set of different reasons, but now we're committed. We're going to have to go see for ourselves next year.
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