Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts are visual feasts, with videos of marching toy soldiers, while lights blink and strobe overhead—that’s just for one song.
The act puts millions into its yearly concerts, but there’s a simple explanation for founder Paul O’Neill’s obsession with all things special effects.
“(I) have a deep-seated fear of having to get a real job,” O’Neill cracks during a teleconference with reporters.
All joking aside, technology is so important to O’Neill that TSO’s management company has a division of “young kids” who are charged with coming up with new special effects.
“We always tell them the same thing: ‘Make believe you’re working for NASA,’” O’Neill explains. “‘We don’t want you thinking rocketry or jet propulsion. We want you thinking transport beams and warp.’ If only one out of 100 ideas makes it to the flight deck, we win. Also, every light company, every pyro company, every special effect company knows that we’re always looking for cutting-edge stuff.”
Fans can expect nothing less when TSO comes to Gila River Arena in Glendale on Sunday, November 30, for two performances of “The Christmas Attic.” This is the first tour the mega rock orchestra is doing this show.
“We never intended to do (1996’s) ‘Christmas Eve and Other Stories’ for 13 years in a row. It just sort of happened,” O’Neill says.
When O’Neill approached his agents about switching things up, they told him they subscribed to the theory of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But O’Neill came out on top.
First, TSO decided to do “The Lost Christmas Eve,” and when that did “phenomenally,” fans started asking “When are you going to do ‘The Christmas Attic’?”
Always up for something new, O’Neill relented and worked studiously on the show.
“We always have a narrator, so if somebody brings his girlfriend, it’s easy for him to follow the story, it’s easy for her to follow the story,” O’Neill says.
“It’s about a kid who goes into an attic where people have been throwing things for decades, if not centuries, and anyone who has been in an old house with an attic knows it’s filled with all kinds of treasures.”
The girl discovers the trunk and reads letters from the past, distant glimpses of how the holidays affected people decades and centuries ago, and a glimpse into the future.
“Of all the rock operas I’ve written, it’s probably the lightest,” O’Neill says. “It’s more along ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ just because, again, between what’s going on in the world with ISIS and all these other things, people need escapism, and so we just wanted to give them a great escape story.”
The second half of the show will feature songs from upcoming albums.
The show is unabashedly prog rock with 24 lead singers, a small orchestra, a rock band and two stages. The demographics of his performances amaze O’Neill to this day. He sees everyone from grandparents to 5-year-old kids at arenas worldwide.
“Around 2004, I got a call in the middle of the night from one of our promoters, who’s a demographic nut,” O’Neill says. “He goes, ‘Paul, I just got your demographics back. I’ll give you 10 guesses, you’ll never guess them.”
It turns out the shows attract folks from every economic class, from the extremely poor to the super rich. The average age is 21. Despite the ornate special effects, TSO strives on keeping its ticket prices reasonable to accomplish this goal of bringing in the masses.
“We always agonize over keeping the ticket prices between $25 and $70, so even with people adding fees, shipping fees, nothing ever goes over $100,” he says.
“Trans-Siberian Orchestra never sells behind the stage, never sells obstructed view, and it’s just super important to us that we watch the fan’s money 10 times more than we watch our own money. So far, it’s worked out.”
And it’s all worth it in the end.
“You love the look on the audience’s faces—especially the kids when they see a new special effect that they’ve never seen before, and we need more than the ordinary band because, as you are probably well aware, we have stages at both ends of the arena.
“You can always tell the rookies in the audience just because they hear orchestra, they think 50 people in folding chairs, 200 lights on or off, and then all of a sudden this humongous prog rock production starts to put itself together, and we’re off and running.”
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Gila River Arena, 9400 W. Maryland Avenue, Glendale, 800.745.3000, ticketmaster.com, Sunday, November 30, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., $32-$67
