Cam Fuller at the Saskatoon Star Phoenix has filed the following report on the TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA:

Almost Famous - Trans-Siberian Orchestra Rocks The Classics

If Bon Jovi were playing Credit Union Centre next Tuesday, you'd know about it.

They're not. But a musical phenomenon will be there that was second only to Bon Jovi in attendance last year. Trans-Siberian Orchestra sold 1.2 million tickets -- in two months, because they tour only around the holiday season.

"We are the world's most famous unknown band,'' says Al Pitrelli, musical director and lead guitarist.

In fact, TSO has played to 4.5 million people since its first tour in 1999, grossing more than $150 million.

How it started:

Musician Paul O'Neill envisioned a band that could play rock, rock opera and classical music. Working with friends like Pitrelli, who played guitar in his own band and with big names like Alice Cooper, O'Neill created the TSO's debut album in 1996, Christmas Eve and Other Stories, which has sold 2.5 million albums to date. The hit single Christmas Eve in Sarajevo 12/24, inspired by Carol of the Bells, remains one of TSO's most popular. It also had a TV hit with its song Wizards in Winter used in a Miller Lite ad.

Whether the concept would work in a live show was another question. The band did only safe TV appearances at first. Before its first concert in Philadelphia in 1999, Pitrelli had his doubts.

"The curtains came up and I almost had a heart attack. There was a kid sitting there in a Megadeth T-shirt and right next to him was a woman in her mid-70s in one of those crocheted reindeer sweaters that your Aunt Mollie would wear to Christmas Eve dinner. I said to myself, 'we're dead.' "

Pitrelli thought the kid would bail when the softer music started and the older woman would flee under the barrage of electric guitar chords.

"And you know what? They were there singing along from note one to the very last lyric of the very last song. I'd never in all my years of being in music and playing in bands had seen anything like this."

Rock tech 101:

Beyond the music is the stage show, an extravaganza of lights and explosions right out of the arena rock catalogue. O'Neill and Pitrelli started as rock fans, and they never forgot their roots.

"Paul and I said if we're ever given the opportunity and the privilege of playing in the large rooms, we're going to pull out all the stops. We lived for this stuff. We were just a bunch of diehard groupies back then."

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(Thanks wesnlisa)