Picture by Mitch Lafon

As previously reported, TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA guitarist Chris Caffery (SAVATAGE) is keeping a tour diary for the duration of the east coast company's North American tour. He has issued the following update:

"'Only 4 more load ins and we go home...'

That is what I read on Ryan the light rig moving guy's computer screen during show #2 today. Wow...we are almost done. I wish we had another 2 months! I am finally settled in!

I don't even know where I left off! It has been so tough with this schedule to write this thing on a daily basis!

Christmas...the TSO Christmas dinner was at 5PM. Or so I thought! We got to the hotel at 3:40 and saw people leaving from the crew. They were on their way to the dinner that was starting at 4! Yikes! We arrived at the dinner a little late, but it was perfect. The appetizers had begun and we did not have to wait. We were at Carmine's again. This place rules. The TSO dinner is the silliest food explosion ever! A family style Italian place. Caesar salad and bread first. Then Calamari. Then a hot antipasta platter. THEN...penne and ravioli...THEN...Lobster and scampi...THEN...steak and veal with spinach...THEN...the desert tray which had over 10 types of amazing items. You mix in the wine and drinks....we were all stuffed and happy! Afterwards we decided just to go to the hotel bar for a nightcap and watch football in the room. This was at about 8PM. Early night. We met up with our bus drivers and a few crew guys and really had a great time. There were two soldiers there that just got back from Iraq. They did not have the greatest things to say about the situation there. I won't go into details, but it is kinda sad.

The Jets won, which was good, but I lost the football pool again. If you would have taken all road teams you would have won it, I almost did that. Wah!

I had to wake up at 8AM to get ready for the bus call to Hartford. This sucked! I wanted to sleep in. E ran to grab me breakfast from Dunkin' Donuts. DD's was way better than the room service! I had eaten it before there! I got my stuff together and said goodbye 'til the tour is over. The bus was rolling by 9:15. We were in Hartford at about 12:30. A little lunch, soundcheck, MySpace friend approval. I am really close to 20,000 friends. Should pass it tomorrow if I get time to add anough people! I took another nap before show #1. I was not awake at all! Once we started I was fine.

Afternoon crowd was fun. Had a good Christmas feel even though we were past Christmas! The night crowd was really great. I was not tired at all on stage with the energy we were getting from them! Thanks so much! I saw my solo band guitar tech Wayne in between shows. I was so tired. I tried to get another nap, this did not work! I think I had two of my better playing shows. Just felt really good.

The signing line was not too bad. 233 signatures. Lots of familiar faces. I headed right to the bus and had a little bit to eat and got to work on this. I am going to stay up for a bit and deal with some mail and MySpace. Only a 90 mile drive so I think I will stay up 'til we get to the hotel.

I hope you all had a great Christmas!"

C

To view TSO's remaining 2006 tour dates - east and west coast touring companies - go to this location.