Bring on the music, bring on the pain

IF YOU’VE NEVER seen or heard, at least live, the now-phenom that is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, whet your appetite and open the pantry of your mind.

You’ll need, essentially, one imaginary outsize tureen and a host of random ingredients to mix up something that’s part rock concert (Christmas-infused, of course, and with a bit of a Woodstocky flavor), part storytime for the grown-up set and part Las Vegas laser-light spectacle. For flourish, throw in a bit of Super Bowl to temper the Bellagio (so invested is the passionate crowd) and maybe a trace of “Touched By An Angel.”

Thing is TSO, as regulars and groupies call it, is quite an intriguing and eclectic kettle of fish.

Saturday afternoon and evening at the Wachovia Arena, the widely beloved troupe made the penultimate stops on its Christmas 2007 tour, all but selling out both shows. Old friends left delighted and new ones with at least a better grasp should they ever be asked to explain TSO to a rookie.

This year’s two-part show -- the second half was a thunderous mini rock concert – opened with the traditional “story,” told by a narrator and set to rock-flavored Christmas carols. It involved an angel dispatched to earth at Christmastime by a God intent on finding out what his people had done since he so long ago sent The Child to live among them. Besides the world – “the Euros,” Russia, Belfast, Burundi to name a few spots visited – a main setting was an old corner bar, in which the angel, through conversation and observation, was able to collect quite a few of his answers.

Russian hearts, for example, desire “peace on Earth and a little Stoli each night,” and kindness, really, is all around, even amid the despair and confusion prevalent in lands where the only decorations are those awarded for crimes and people, astoundingly, profess to kill for God. The message was obvious, and it called forth as much introspection as awe.

Gorgeous, uptempo notes were hit on a host of classics. A plaintive “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” became a signal of hope, envisioned as from a single cello upon a battlefield, while a rousing “Carol Of The Bells” brought nearly everyone to their feet. “Joy To The World” was imagined as drifting in solo from a tiny country church, letting the angel know not all have forgotten or abandoned The Child.

Ultimately, though, in this simple corner-bar story, it was a selfless bartender who saved the day for another man’s daughter, one intent on getting home for Christmas, as unlikely as that seemed. All the money from the barkeep’s till not only accomplished that but blessed the father who had almost lost hope the girl would arrive.

Getting to this main plot involved stars and snow and neon-lit prayers, all essentially forming a fanciful rendering of God-man communication. A cynic might have asked: But that’s it? A girl gets put in a cab, whisked off to JFK, and … what of it?

Open the mind and heart, went the message, and realize something: “If you want to arrange it, this world you can change it.” Even in small ways.

And, oh yes, you can make Christmas last. Kindness, after all, is not a Christmas-only trait. And that which we do expecting nothing back is the most blessed thing we can do.

Making Christmas last … The message was quite fitting for a Christmas show taken in on Jan. 5, when the last of those feelings might have been getting ready to leave us. The fans, fervent as ever though, were no less receptive.

Speaking of receptive, the United States Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots program was surely thrilled to become the recipient of more than a small share of Christmas kindness via TSO. One dollar from every ticket sold in each market gets set aside for a local charity, meaning Toys for Tots now has an extra $15,710 with which to work. With which to, in some small way, change a child and, resultantly, if the chain plays out, change the world.

WRESTLE-MANIA OVERTOOK the Wachovia Arena on Tuesday night, in the form of the much-heralded, much-ballyhooed Smackdown, which boasts a heavily male following from 8 to, say, 80. We asked kid reviewer Ryan Castle, 8, of Wilkes-Barre to tell us about the show, which, in a word, he loved and, in three words, loved, loved, loved.

At the end Rey Mysterio was fighting Chavo Guerrero, and Rey won, but at the end Edge came in, and Rey was going to 619 Edge, but the Edge’s heads came in and helped Edge, and that’s how it ended.