Christmas Eve Sarajevo!! ☃️🌲🎅

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!

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.