Show Review: Van Helsing's Curse

What the heck is Van Helsing's Curse?

It's a project headlined and conceptualized by Dee Snider (formerly of Twisted Sister), but bears little resemblance to his earlier work. Apparantly, they only play around Halloween (wonder why...). In concept, it's a horror story told by music borrowed and added to by a small orchestra and rock band (lead violin, grand piano, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, 4x violinists, 5x chanters w/ lead vocalist). With the combination orchestral/rock sound (which is very well done), they cover and build upon classic horror themes such as The Exorcist, Black Sabbath, and such. Almost devoid of lyrics, the main story is sold on CD. The encore, however, is more than worth sticking around for. They cover some more major themes (Friday the 13th, and an awesome version of 'The Munsters' theme song), and Snider actually sings a song.

Snider mainly narrates the story, with one occasion where he lends vocals. The story concerns an old man and boy who fight a monster at the source of a terrible plague (with the much-borrowed name of Van Helsing). The music backs the concept well, and contains plenty of oppotunity for highlighting between both lead guitar and violin (a member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra- The bastard is great).

If you like Halloween or spooky stuff atall, it's an awesome stage show. I can't really recommend the recording of the show, as it's not nearly as cool as the entire live show, and missing the encore.