Mitchell Peters at Reuters/Billboard has published a new story on the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA featuring guitarist Al Pitrelli and co-founder Paul O'Neill. An excerpt appears below.

'Tis The Season For Trans-Siberian Spectacle

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - It's easy to spot Trans-Siberian Orchestra musical director/guitarist Al Pitrelli backstage after the band's late-November concert at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. He's the one wearing a bulky knee brace and hopping around on metal crutches.

Earlier in the evening, Pitrelli -- a seasoned guitarist who has also toured with Alice Cooper and Megadeth -- had to sit onstage during the symphonic rock band's nearly three-hour Christmas-themed show. Dressed in a black coat, a white-collared shirt and black slacks, the longhaired musician was "a little overconfident" during the band's tour-opening concert November 1, according to Paul O'Neill, the wizard behind the curtain of TSO's rock operas and effects-filled shows.

"He took a huge jump from stage left onto the main deck, locked his knees and tore his ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) right off," O'Neill says.

Pitrelli remembers it differently. "The true story is that I didn't want to do one of O'Neill's arrangements, so he came up and kneecapped me," he jokes.

O'Neill attempted to hire a temporary replacement guitarist, but Pitrelli wouldn't have it. "He said, 'Paul, I'll leave the tour when I'm dead,'" O'Neill says.

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