OFF: Savatage

[John A Swartz]

I have one Savatage CD in my collection - Dead Winter Dead.  It's a rock
opera based on the strife in the area formerly known as Yugoslavia, and,
while a very metal-based sound, I was actually quite moved by the CD,
especially when reading the accompanying story in the liner notes.  I've
been meaning to pick up another Savatage CD or two, but always seem to
end up buying something else instead, but I really liked the sound of
this album.

A little story on how I came to pick up this particular album -- I was
on a business trip in Florida in December of 1995 (St. Petersburg area).
Turns out BOC was playing in St. Pete the night I was scheduled to get
there, so I made plans to try and get to the club in time (my flight wasn't
due to land until around 9 pm or so, and then of course I had to get my
car rental, get on the highway, find the club, etc).  My flight was late
enough that I managed to get to the club just 15 minutes before BOC hit
the stage.  The show was a good one (as they all are), and it was my first
chance to see Danny Miranda in concert, so that was cool -- what was special
was that the band did "Slow Down" for an encore, with "local" guitarist
Al Pitrelli jamming with the band.  He played Eric's guitar and he was
excellent.  Then, a few days later on my business trip, one of my co-
workers is asking me about this sound that was getting a lot of local
airplay - she had heard it was a local act, that the song was from some
sort of music based on the Yugoslavia stuff, and the tune was based on a
classical piece of Christmas music.  She was hoping to find out more so
that she could pick up the CD - I happened to stop at a music store to
try and find out what this was, and found Savatage's "Dead Winter Dead" -
the album which contained the song (I think the song was called "Christmas
Eve/1994 - Sarajevo"), and I also happened to pick up a local rock zine
that had an article on Savatage and this album -- from reading this article,
I saw that Al Pitrelli, the guy I saw jamming with BOC a few days earlier,
was one of the guitarists on the album.  If I had any doubts about buying
this album, that little coincidence convinced me to pick it up -- and I
have no regrets that I did.

John