Utah News

Al Pitrelli is a live in the moment kind of guy.

It’s come in handy as a 63-year-old grandfather, who also has more than a dozen nieces and nephews. When family comes to visit, he’s ready to wholeheartedly embrace the fun — albeit with a magic eraser and broom on hand to quickly clean up some inevitable messes along the way.

As a guitarist who has been with Alice Cooper, Megadeth and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, it has been key to his success.

While going on tour generally means performing the same set list night after night, Pitrelli prefers to think of performing in terms of individual shows rather than the whole tour at large.

He treats each show like it’s his first — and that’s because for at least one person in the audience, it likely is a first.

But as Trans-Siberian Orchestra is soon approaching 30 years since releasing their first album, “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” Pitrelli is getting a little reflective.

He talks about TSO’s evolution the same way he talks about his children.

“You hold them as an infant, you’re half riddled with jubilance and the other half terrified, like, ‘What do I do?’” he told the Deseret News during a recent phone call. “And now I’m looking at this thing, it’s gonna turn 30.

“But the fact that it keeps growing and more people fall in love with it,” he continued, “I’m just so proud of what this has become.”

This week, Trans-Siberian Orchestra brings “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve: The Best of TSO and More” tour to Salt Lake City — the first place they tried out playing both a matinee and evening show, which has since become a regular part of their touring schedule.

Ahead of the Wednesday shows at the Delta Center, Pitrelli talked about his love for the Utah fanbase (and his go-to spot for food), 30 years of TSO and how he walks the fine line of making a show that is a holiday tradition for so many new and exciting.

Why Utah holds a place in Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s heart

Pitrelli doesn’t have a specific reason Salt Lake City was the place for TSO’s inaugural matinee.

“But I’m very proud that it was, because we love it here,” he said.

Now, after more than 20 years of coming through Salt Lake City, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra tour would be incomplete without that stop, Pitrelli said.

“It really is like a second home, just because we know it so well,” the guitarist said.

Since TSO’s schedule usually allows for some downtime in Utah, Pitrelli likes to walk around Salt Lake City. He’s wandered around City Creek, and always makes a point to walk by the Ferrari dealership that’s about a mile away from Whole Foods — ”just walk by it, can’t afford it,” he only slightly jokes.

Some members in the band like to go skiing in Park City — “Please don’t break anything, and make it to the show,” Pitrelli will tell them.

Pitrelli also has a go-to place for food: Mumbai House.

He’ll order a bunch of food from the Salt Lake restaurant for some band members to eat while sitting on the tour bus catching up on sleep or shows.

“Great Indian food,” he said. “It’s just awesome.”

But one of Pitrelli’s greatest memories in Utah — and in TSO’s nearly 30-year history — is that first matinee show. Along with the band’s first-ever show, a gig at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, and the first arena show the band ever played — the home of the Portland Trailblazers — that Utah matinee is a standout moment.

“When we started coming through Salt Lake, I’d never heard a crowd that loud in my life,” Pitrelli said.

Tran-Siberian Orchestra, ‘a 30-year diary’

Before TSO’s first show, the band had released a couple of heavy metal Christmas-themed albums that people were buying. But a few years in, as he was about to be face-to-face with that fanbase for the first time, Pitrelli really had no idea what to expect.

When the curtains rose for the sold-out show at Pennsylvania’s Tower Theater, a venue the guitarist had last played with Alice Cooper, Pitrelli played his first note and looked into the audience.

He recalled seeing an older couple wearing crocheted Christmas sweaters with reindeers on them. Directly next to them sat a man in a Slayer hoodie.

That eccentric visual, Pitrelli said, ended up foreshadowing the wide range of fans who find meaning in the work of TSO’s founder, the late Paul O’Neill.

The guitarist has witnessed TSO become a multigenerational tradition for families, with fans who’ve been following them for 20-plus years now bringing their own kids and grandchildren. He’s been the backdrop for wedding proposals — usually during the song “Christmas Canon” — and watched the formation of new families.

For the guitarist himself, the meaning of the songs he has played countless times have changed over time. The song “Ornament” from TSO’s first album, about a father’s prayer for his runaway daughter to return home on Christmas Day, hits harder now that he has two kids in the military.

“It’s almost like having a 30-year diary,” he said. “I don’t spend a whole heck of a lot of time looking in the rearview mirror, but every so often I’ll take a peek. I’m like, ‘Wow, this is going pretty good so far.’ But the task at hand is to make this year’s tour better than last year’s tour.”

‘It really does take all year long to do this’

Trans-Siberian Orchestra has firmly established itself as a holiday tradition, with shows across the country extending from mid-November to the end of December.

But in terms of planning, there’s really not an offseason for the band. The artistry, Pitrelli said, comes from all corners of the TSO organization — the lighting, lasers, pyro, music, etc. — and it is a massive undertaking.

”It really does take all year long to do this,” Pitrelli said, noting that last year’s tour included 21 tractor-trailers, 12 buses and 100 crew people.

Pitrelli usually returns to the drawing board during the second week of January for what he described as “conversations and arguments and, you know, the occasional agreement.”

Planning a show each year is a delicate balancing act. As a yearly tradition for many fans, the show comes with certain expectations. But at the same time, Pitrelli doesn’t want it to get stale.

He lovingly calls TSO’s biggest fans “repeat offenders” — the ones who come back year after year. In his mind, he wouldn’t be doing his job — or at least doing it well — if those fans came back to a show they’d already seen.

This year, the centerpiece of the show is “The Ghosts of Christmas Eve,” the rock opera that tells the story of a girl who runs away and finds refuge in an abandoned theater on Christmas Eve. Written by Paul O’Neill, it’s a story Pitrelli said has resonated with fans and become their new version of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” or “Miracle on 34th Street.”

That story, which Pitrelli calls “the star of the show,” remains intact. But this year’s tour also features music Pitrelli said TSO hasn’t done in 15-20 years — including a set of songs that celebrates the 25th anniversary of the rock opera “Beethoven’s Last Night,” which tells the fictional story of the composer’s final day on Earth.

“I always want the music to grow,” Pitrelli said. “Somebody told me a long time ago that a complete art is a dead art. And I just kind of like how it’s moving forward, the evolution of it.

“I owe it to Paul O’Neill and his legacy, myself as an artist, the people in the band, management, Paul’s family, and the people in the audience,” he said. “I’m gonna work hard every year, deconstructing it and putting it back together bigger and better.”

Each night he takes the stage, Pitrelli says he’s living out a dream that started to take shape when he was 2 years old and saw The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“My dad always told me, ‘If you’re having a good life, it’s gonna go by in five minutes.’ And here we are.”

The Utah Jazz couldn’t get it done against the Los Angeles Lakers, losing 140–125 in a game that had zero defense on either side and eventually turned into a long, slow unraveling for Utah. What made it frustrating was that the Jazz actually looked sharp early. The pace was ridiculous from the jump — both teams sprinting, ignoring the shot clock, and basically playing pickup. Utah handled it well in the first half because Keyonte George and Lauri Markkanen showed up immediately.

Keyonte came in on a confidence high from his Chicago game-winner and played like it. He opened the game with 13 points, 3 boards, 4 assists, no turnovers, and kept that same rhythm the whole night. He finished with 33 on 12-of-22 shooting and looked like the only guy who consistently kept the offense alive. Lauri matched him bucket for bucket early, finishing with 31 and hitting the shot of the night — that off-balance, and-one three over Austin Reaves right before halftime. Utah went into the break up 71–67 and looked like they had momentum.

The problems were everything outside of those two. The Lakers lived at the free-throw line with 18 first-half attempts, and Luka Doncic slowly took the game over. He finished with 37, and once he got comfortable, he was just walking into whatever shots he wanted. Utah couldn’t get a stop in the third quarter at all. The Lakers finally grabbed their first lead late in the quarter and immediately blew the game open. By the time the horn sounded, Utah was down 104–93, and the momentum had completely flipped.

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LeBron didn’t score much but put on a passing clinic with 12 assists, easing his way back into game shape and picking Utah apart whenever he wanted. Ayton and Reaves were huge too — Ayton with 20 and 14, Reaves with 26 and eleven made free throws. And the Lakers’ bench putting up 40 didn’t help either. Utah didn’t get anything close to that level of support.

On Utah’s side, Ace Bailey struggled and looked overwhelmed. Nurkic had flashes but was sloppy with the ball and ended with six turnovers. Cody Williams, once again, just didn’t impact the game. At this point he’s mostly out there doing cardio, and those minutes need to go to someone who can actually influence the outcome. The vet-heavy rotation didn’t make sense either — Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson, and Svi all played over Hendricks and Walter Clayton Jr., which doesn’t fit a developing team at all.

By the fourth quarter, the Lakers had fully pulled away and the game stopped feeling competitive. It dragged on, the whistles never stopped, and it felt like everyone was just waiting for it to end. As annoying as the loss was, it honestly helps Utah more than a random win. Tank anxiety has been real lately with how hot Lauri and Keyonte have been, and the Jazz badly need a top pick if they want a real long-term forward next to their core.

A tough night, but one that quietly pushes the franchise in the direction it actually needs to go.

SAN JOSE – Macklin Celebrini scored at the 2:52 mark of overtime to complete his third career hat trick to give the San Jose Sharks a 3-2 win over the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday at SAP Center.

Handling the puck near the blue line and with the Sharks on a power play, Celebrini fired the puck past Utah goalie Vitek Vanecek for his 13th goal of the season.

The Sharks had a two-goal lead, but allowed two third-period goals to JJ Peterka, including the tying goal with 2:51 left in regulation.

Celebrini also scored even-strength goals at the 1:47 and 5:58 marks of the first period for his 11th and 12th goals of the season. Askarov had 14 saves in the first two periods and 10 more in the third, but a shot by Peterka from 40 feet away got between the goalie’s upper body and left arm to tie the game 2-2.

Coming into Tuesday, Askarov has been the NHL’s best goalie over the past two weeks with a .965 save percentage and a 4-1-0 record in his last five games.

According to Sportradar, Askarov is the first goalie since the 1955-56 season, when the NHL began tracking such statistics, to have a save percentage that high over a five-game stretch without a shutout.

After Peterka scored at the 9:25 mark of the third period to cut the Sharks’ lead to 2-1, the Mammoth thought they had tied the game with 6:22 left in regulation. But it was ruled on the ice that the Mammoth had interfered with Askarov, a call that was upheld after a coach’s challenge by Utah.

The Sharks were coming off a 1-2-0 road trip that finished with losses to the Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken, and they didn’t score a 5-on-5 goal in any of the three games.

Celebrini solved that problem with a lightning-fast start against the Mammoth.

After the Sharks created a turnover inside their own zone, Will Smith started a rush the other way and got the puck to Celebrini, who carried it into the Utah zone. He then got the puck to Philipp Kurashev, who retrieved it behind the Mammoth net.

Kurashev then sent it out front to Smith, who snapped a pass across the slot to Celebrant. The 19-year-old took a moment before he fired it past Utah goalie Vitek Vanecek for his 11th of the season, 1:47 into the game.

Just 4:11 later, Celebrini broke up a Mammoth pass inside the Sharks’ to set up another rush. Sharks winger Collin Graf picked up the loose puck and sent it ahead to Celebrini, who went in alone on Vanecek and beat his former San Jose teammate five-hole for a 2-0 San Jose lead.

Celebrini’s second goal, which came on a breakaway after a pass from Collin Graf, represented his 29th point of the season, the most for any Sharks player through the first 20 games of the season.

Before Tuesday, Celebrini was third in the NHL with 27 points in 19 games, which was also the third-most ever by a teenager through 19 games, trailing only Sidney Crosby (30 in 2006-07) and Wayne Gretzky (30 in 1980-81). He recently tied Crosby and Gretzky for fewest games needed by a teenager to reach 26 points in a season (17; Nov. 11).

An owl found partially encased in concrete after it got inside a cement mixer in southwestern Utah is expected to fly free again after it was painstakingly cleaned by animal sanctuary workers who described the bird as a “fighter.”

The great horned owl was found at the Black Desert Resort in the southwestern part of the state and arrived at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, earlier this month with its face, chest and right wing covered in dried concrete. After making sure the bird could breathe, sanctuary workers spent days cracking apart the concrete using forceps and cleaning its feathers using toothbrushes, dish soap and their fingers.

Two weeks later, it was able to fly again and is continuing its recovery in an aviary.

“He’s a youngster, which may be why he ended up in a concrete mixer, and we do believe he’s a male because he’s on the smaller side,” said Bart Richwalski with the animal sanctuary.

Great horned owls typically have a downy coating on their feathers that allows them to fly silently as they hunt. But the concrete frayed the rescued owl’s feathers, said Best Friends’ Chief Sanctuary Officer Judah Battista.

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Now the bird makes a “whooshing” sound as it flies, and the sanctuary won’t release it into the wild until it sheds its feathers and can again fly silently. That should occur next spring or summer, Battista said.

“Once our owl friend recovers, we anticipate taking him back to near where he was found, not on the construction site, but somewhere that is a natural habitat for him and release him and let him be,” Richwalski said.

In the spring, summer and fall, travelers flock to Utah’s Canyon Country for the rich red canyons, arches and bulbous rock formations found in the area’s two national parks, national monuments, state parks and recreation areas. However, few make it to this area in the winter, missing out on a unique outdoor getaway.

“If you’re looking for solitude, winter can be a great time to visit,” says Allison Yamamoto-Sparks, visitors services manager for San Juan County Economic Development and Visitor Services.If that wasn’t enough, visitors also receive better prices on tours and stays in Moab, the main city in Canyon Country.

“Lodging and guided activities often have discounted rates during the winter, and if you’re lucky you might even get to see some of our beautiful parks and red rock landscapes covered in a dusting of snow,” Yamamoto-Sparks says.

GETTING THERE

Canyonlands Regional Airport has daily direct flights from Phoenix and Denver on Contour Airlines, which partners with American Airlines and United Airlines. Otherwise, you can fly into Grand Junction, Colorado, or Salt Lake City and drive 112 miles or 234 miles, respectively, to Moab.

HIKE, BIKE OR SKI

Hiking is one of the most popular activities in the region, thanks to a network of hundreds of trails. “You can usually hike year-round in the lower elevations of the desert since it doesn’t get snow often,” Yamamoto-Sparks says.

It’s not all bad injury news for the Kansas State football team.

Head coach Chris Klieman expects Jerand Bradley to be healthy enough to play for the Wildcats when they head to Utah for their final Big 12 road game of the season Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

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That is a welcome development for the K-State offense. At this point in the season, the Wildcats need every healthy playmaker they have on the roster.

Klieman said Bradley’s return will “help a bunch.”

Bradley, a 6-foot-5 and 223-pound senior, has made 13 catches for 184 yards and two touchdowns this season. But he has only seen limited action. Bradley has missed four games because of injuries, including a 14-6 victory over Oklahoma State on Saturday.

There is a good chance he will be more involved than usual against Utah, as K-State recently lost top wide receiver Jayce Brown to a season-ending injury. K-State quarterback Avery Johnson will look to get the ball to Jaron Tibbs and Bradley on the perimeter.

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“Getting Jerand back will help us kind of stay the course there,” Klieman said, “after we lose a really explosive player like Jayce. We will lose him as an explosive player and there aren’t going to be probably as many explosive plays without Jayce. But hopefully we still have a really efficient wide receiver group.”

Brown ended the season with a team-high 41 catches for 712 yards and five touchdowns.

His injury was the latest in a string of unfortunate events for the Wildcats, who have also been playing without their leading tackler (Austin Romaine) and their best pass-rusher (Tobi Osunsanmi). Their top running back (Dylan Edwards) also left the team earlier this month.