Saga Pomp And Circus Pants

Friday August 23, 2002 @ 05:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

Saga
"That we were and we were proud of it. We're here to pomp you up," laughs Sagas Jim Crichton, taking no offense at being called "pomp rock," a journo term used in the late 70s and early 80s for the bands brand of sweet keyboard-laden hard progressive pop, which is a bit more of a mouthful.

Recently in Toronto with Jethro Tull (at approximately 10,000, the turnout was Tulls biggest in Canada since headlining at Maple Leaf Gardens in the early 80s), Saga wowed the hometown crowd with hits and deep album tracks from their 25 year catalogue, which is in the process of being reissued, four discs at a time. As well, the band is finishing up work on their next studio album and have two DVDs coming out.

B Crichton, interviewed an hour before hitting the stage in Toronto, runs through the game plan. "Well, we played in Ottawa last night, Toronto tonight, Molson Amphitheater and tomorrow night were playing in a club I've never heard of, north of Guelph; it's a new theater venue. And that's it; we basically came up to do this show. We were in Germany last month and we did our 25th anniversary DVD show; we rehearsed for five days and then did a two and a half-hour show and then came home. The show we did in Bonn, we probably did about an hour that consisted of songs we've either never played or songs we haven't played in 20 years."

Additional footage will likely be used from the Toronto show and a Puerto Rico date, with that DVD streeting in March. The first DVD to be released however, as band manager Michael Ellis explains, will be a retrospective package likely out by October. "You've got all 10 music videos, 10 live tracks, of which three of them are bootlegs we got off the guy who did the Hammersmith Odeon show, all stuff through the '80s and '90s and then an in-depth interview of the band. It's the first time weve ever all sat down and did it. We recorded all over the world, Germany, Austria, California, here in Canada. Basically, it just chronicles the band's whole lives and careers together. And there were no holds barred, no questions that couldnt be asked. It's kind of done in the format of a VH1 Behind The Music, where the band are the storytellers and they take you through the saga of Saga."

Martin Popoff

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