TSO tops them all

TSO tops them all

EDITOR:

The Vindicator’s Entertainment Extra edition of Dec. 27 included an article written by Guy D’Astolfo, the paper’s entertainment writer, on the year in review for concerts in the Mahoning Valley, including his list of the Top 10 local concerts in 2007.

 I do want to applaud the success of The Wedge, as noted in his article. It is terrific to see the club doing well and bringing national acts to the Valley.

However, I have to take extreme exception to Mr. D’Astolfo’s failure to even mention the Valley’s clear choice for number one concert event of this season — as well as the last three years — the Trans Siberian Orchestra concerts at the Chevy Centre. This year’s concerts were Nov. 1-3.

How The Vindicator’s entertainment writer missed this one is anybody’s guess. Perhaps because it is a “Christmas theme” concert, he felt it was not a “real concert” and deserving of his attention. He could not be more wrong.

Consider these facts:

UTSO opened their extensive 2007 North American Tour in Youngstown with four sold out shows over three days. The concerts drew 20,000 or more people from over the region, not just the Valley, to the Chevy Centre.

UThe TSO stage/lightning production is one of the largest on tour anywhere. It requires 10 semi-trucks to transport, plus several tour busses for the band and crew.

UThe TSO concert light show and special effects must be experienced to explained. It is worth the price of admission by itself.

UMusically, the very talented 20 member TSO band (including a six-piece string section of local musicians) “rocks the Valley,” to use a phrase from Guy’s article referencing other concert acts. A solid two-hour concert (without an intermission) combines the music of traditional Christmas carols and their non-holiday original music, blended with classical influences of Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, and fused with a wall of rock guitar, keyboards and drums, backed by powerful vocals, for a sound like no other.

UTSO contributes a portion of each ticket sold to a local charity. This equates to $24,000 or more to local Mahoning Valley charitable causes. What a class thing to do.

LEONARD DULAY

Canfield

More stuff in a new place

EDITOR:

We moan at length about the traffic on Route 224. The State of Ohio spends a million dollars on a traffic study as part of an effort to reduce congestion along that corridor, addressing symptoms instead of the source. Now Wal-Mart wants to build in Canfield, distributing another one of their stores in the way dogs mark trees.

Never mind the environmental impact and the additional demand on natural resources this store will generate for we will have yet another place to buy “more stuff.” Only in this country does there exist the freedom to reveal how insidiously destructive we have been — and then continue in our insidious way with an even more determined spirit. Good luck, Canfield.

KIM R. KOTHEIMER

Boardman