Christmas Eve Sarajevo!! ☃️🌲🎅

[Jak Angelescu]

I shared this on my Instagram but I wanted to share it here 1st and foremost. It’s not the entirety of it but I couldn’t upload the whole thing yet. When I 1st started guitar this was a Goal song of mine. I never thought I would ever be able to play it. And thanks to this school and the help from Syn and papa gates and the encouragement of my singer I was able to play along and learned in 10 minutes. I’m also naming the key thing at your comment knowing the scales on playing and everything. Please keep practicing! It will pay off!

 

[Ed Seith]

NICE! Great song! I remember this back when it was a Savatage song, before TSO was built around it. Great band, great album – the Savatage album *AND* the TSO album.
TSO puts on a helluva show, too. Well done!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

Thank you so much captain ed! I was lucky enough to see TSO a when Al Pitrelli was the guitarist. I definitely love Savatage as well, but I didn’t know that this song was built around a Savatage song originally! Thank you for the comment it really means a lot to me. Learning this song tonight put the biggest smile on my face!!

 

[Ed Seith]

Indeed, the entire song was on Savatage’s “Dead Winter Dead” album, and Al Pitrelli was in that band at the time. Frustrated that they had a great rock Christmas track but no one would play it, the “Trans-Siberian Orchestra” name was slapped on the identical track and released again, and it caught on like wildfire. It did not take long for plans for a full album to materialize, with yearly touring starting soon after. That first TSO album is GOLD!
I never met Pitrelli but ran in similar social circles as then co-guitarist Chris Caffery and we chatted occasionally. It’s a little dated now, but Pitrelli also had a little known project with Dee Snider called Widowmaker, and the “Blood and Bullets” album is awesome.

 

[Gabriel Corso]

Really nice!!!
Good playing!
Congrats Jak!!

 

[Jen Hapke]

Love it!
Sixx A.M. used it too in the intro of the Heroine Diaries album.
It has such an energy.