going to take alot of heat for this but Savatage stopped being Savatage when Jon stepped down from the lead vocals.....
I'm going to agree and disagree with this sentiment. Jon Oliva stepping down from the mic and the introduction of Zak had a massive impact on the sound of the band. While Zak certainly had his metal influences as a singer, he's much more influenced by blues and country, and his style of vocals brought a completely different tone to Savatage. That being said, I think Zak's voice was well suited for Savatage and the direction they were going on Edge Of Thorns. White Gutter Ballet and Streets, the band got about as melodic as they could with Jon as the front man, and (no offence to Jon), in the age of MTV, Savatage wasn't going to achieve much commercial success with a singer looking like Jon. Zak was better looking and had a more mainstream friendly voice, and combined with the more hard rock direction of EOT, the band managed to achieve a level of commercial crossover that had previously been un-attainable to them. Had Criss not died, it is highly probably EOT would have been Savatage big break into the mainstream......
................Which leads me to my next point: The change of singer was one of three major alterations Savatage went through between 1992 and 1994 that completely remade the band. Criss's guitar riffs were just as significant to the band's sound as Jon's voice, and when Criss passed away, a certain guitar driven edge was lost. It is no coincidence that on Handful Of Rain, the band focused much more on symphonic orchestrations and complex vocal arrangements then ever before. Criss's passing sparked a very conscious move away from guitar driven rock and into something more theatrical, something that the band had toyed with before, but now really became the defining element of the band.
Wacholz's permanent departure from the band after Criss's death sealed the end of "Classic" Savatage and the band that came into existence on Handful Of Rain was a very different entity then the band that had existed from '82 to '92. Without Jon's voice, Criss's guitar or Wacholz's drums, the last remnants of the original Avatar lineup were swept away, and the band that made Dead Winter Dead, The Wake Of Magellan and even Poets And Madmen (yes, even with Jon's vocals) had much more in common with Trans-Siberian Orchestra then it did with Sirens or Dungeons. They carried on as Savatage for a while, but when TSO became such a big phenomenon (with a Savatage song, no less) the writing was on the wall, and Savatage was laid to rest.
The thing is, though, to me, there is a very clear continuity between Old Savatage and Newer Savatage (and TSO as well). In addition to Jon, Johnny and Caffery carried over from one era to the next, and Paul O'Neill and Bob Kinkel continued to shape the band in the studio just as they had before. Furthermore, the direction the band took in their later years, and continued with as TSO, was something that had been in development as far back as Hall Of The Mountain King, and greatly expanded upon with Gutter and Streets. The roots of TSO reach pretty far back into the Savatage discography, and there are strong ties between the band pre-'93 and post'93, despite the extensive changes to the music and roster. Savatage never died for me, it evolved, and while I can understand if older Svatage fans dislike later 'Tage and TSO, I don't think it can be ignored that the band who made DWD did still retain some ties to the old days.
As for Savatage tours - I don't care for that as much, I'd be happy if they decide to just be a studio band and release an album every 3-4 years in-between TSO tours.
I'm actually going to agree with this. I am much more interested in hearing new Savatage studio material then seeing a full blown Savatage tour, largely because TSO, JOP, and/or CIIC can (and probably will) play the new songs live, as well as continuing to play older Savatage songs. If the band does continue to do Savatage records, and then those songs get played live by their various active projects, that would be more then enough to satisfy me.
Wow...
I really love *all* eras of Savatage...and I even catch flack for being luke warm on Edge of Thorns. But I think Savatage PEAKED with DWD and WOM. Those albums are stunning.
I agree with DWD being one of the peaks of the band's career. IMO, the pinnacle of Savatage as songwriters was Gutter Ballet though DWD.
Topic: The Savatage Thread (Read 102582 times)
