Wednesday, December 17, 2008

putting the band back together

TNT's annual broadcast of "Christmas in Washington" has become part of my holiday tradition. I found myself looking forward to the telecast for a couple of reasons.

Julianne Hough
opened the show. Unfortunately she sounded nervous. When my wife and I saw her sing at the World Grotto accompanied only by a pair of acoustic guitars, she sounded fantastic. In front of First Lady Laura Bush and singing with a full orchestra and a choir full of backup singers Julianne was, how do you say, pitchy. My wife thought that she probably didn't have a good mix in her monitor speakers or earbuds.

My wife had recently heard about a clever version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." At first she thought her friend was trying to tell her about the old parody song, "The Twelve Days After Christmas." Instead it was a medley of different tunes by a group called Straight No Chaser, who appeared on the show tonight. When Robin McGraw read their introduction, I was interested to learn that they sang together in college, went their separate ways and reunited when an old video of theirs went viral on YouTube. They now have a record deal. I put their CD on my Amazon wish list.

In other random Christmas music news, I've been hearing a lot about the Trans-Siberian Orchestra lately. When I happened to see affianced bloggers Rich and Lissa in Gatlinburg recently, they told me that they are going to the upcoming concert at Thompson-Boling Arena. The TSO also came up in a phone conversation with a friend who was traveling in the Northeast and thought that the band was playing in his area too. During the course of our chat, I got to wondering if the Orchestra could make more money during the holidays by being in two places at once. A look at their tour schedule confirmed my suspicions. On the night that the Trans-Siberian Orchestra plays in Knoxville, they will also be in Indianapolis. The night before that they will be in both Nashville and Detroit. After they play here, they will be in Memphis and Grand Rapids on the same night. Obviously they use two groups of musicians. Wikipedia says they hire local string players in each city but it doesn't say how the principals are divided up. No offense to Indianapolis, but I hope that Knoxville gets the better show that night.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Barry said...

We'll be at the TSO concert next week as well.

Amazingly enough, I'l be at the Indianapolis concert at the same time. Funny how that works out! I'm thinking of hiring out a local wife from that area as my date...

12/18/2008  

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