Roll call Stocholm - Circus 2016-03-01 and 2016-03-02

[SwedishGoose]

So Dream Theater will play at Circus this time. I have not seen the there before, missed the Awake tour unfortunately.
Should be an excellent venue to see them...

This time I will be there both on the 1st and on the second night as this tour will be something out of the ordinary.
The first night with a friend and the second I will bring my son.
Who else here will go?

[SwedishGoose]

Only two months now until Cicus will be Astonishing 

[CharlesPL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nDc5sbcnTc

[legenden1]

Yes, I will be there with a friend on the first night. Saw them at Circus for the Awake- and FII-tours and it really is the best venue I´ve seen them in. They really were on fire there at the Awake tour, to the extent that James threw the micstand away and left the stage for a while 

[Lalin1974]

I will be there for the first time. Been a fan ever since I&W but never big enough to catch them live. I deeply regret that now as I wish I could have caught them for the Awake tour , SFAM and SDOIT. Better late than never I guess but still ...

[Öxölklöfför]

I'll be there for both concerts!

[efx]

I'll be going to both. Got tix for row 4 tonight.

[Lalin1974]

Got 2 tickets for lodge 1 on the left side. Too bad that todays show is not sold out. Tomorrows show is though

[SwedishGoose]

I'll be going to both. Got tix for row 4 tonight.

Same row as me and my friend...  seats 415 and 416

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I'll be going tomorrow with a friend. Have fun tonight guys! 

[efx]

Same row as me and my friend...  seats 415 and 416

Cool I'm in 421

[SwedishGoose]

Same row as me and my friend...  seats 415 and 416

Cool I'm in 421

See ya there... it's gonna be really interresting

[efx]

For sure, I'm excited. I still haven't heard one note from the album. It's the first DT album I haven't bought on release day since Awake but I thought it'd be kind of fun to get to experience it live as the first time I heard the music

[Lalin1974]

For sure, I'm excited. I still haven't heard one note from the album. It's the first DT album I haven't bought on release day since Awake but I thought it'd be kind of fun to get to experience it live as the first time I heard the music

That gutsy...It took me 3-4 listens to fully appreciate it ... First listen I got hooked on 6-7 songs and the more I listened to it, the more songs caught my attention. After having listened to it about 20 times now I fully appreciate the scope, the recurring themes and in general the effort
It is like when I first saw Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables . I enjoyed them as a whole but it was a whole different story when I went for the third time.

Have a great time tonight. I know I will

[bosk1]

For sure, I'm excited. I still haven't heard one note from the album. It's the first DT album I haven't bought on release day since Awake but I thought it'd be kind of fun to get to experience it live as the first time I heard the music

This is one tour where I definitely would NOT have chosen that approach.  But, hey, I am interested in hearing your thoughts after the show. 

[efx]

For sure, I'm excited. I still haven't heard one note from the album. It's the first DT album I haven't bought on release day since Awake but I thought it'd be kind of fun to get to experience it live as the first time I heard the music

This is one tour where I definitely would NOT have chosen that approach.  But, hey, I am interested in hearing your thoughts after the show.

Well, for any other album I probably wouldn't have heard the new stuff from beginning to end like this as it would have been a selection of new stuff sprinkled with old stuff.

As this will mirror the album as closely as possible I thought it'd be a fun experiment

[Mladen]

Now, that's an original approach! Kudos. 

[efx]

That was a lot of fun I'd be lying if I didn't say there was too much music to take in and form an opinion on the first time but I liked most of what I heard.

I also met the excellent SwedishGoose and his friend who were supercool people, we talked a bit after the show.

The setup for this was great, I enjoyed the real life nomac outside the main venue, the visuals were cool and sitting 6 feet from JP is always fun.

[Lalin1974]

It was a great show.....
The undeniable highlight was JPs solo from a new beginning. ...got a standing ovation for that .... man I wish he would have kept shredding for another 5 minutes!!!
JLB sounded good as well ... surprisingly well I would say

[SwedishGoose]

Just got home after the show...   WOW

Best show O javr seen... and I have seen a few... 9 previously with DT.. my previous favorite Peter Gabriels Secret World is now at number 2...

Super  cool to meet efx and talk to him... hope to meet you tomorrow too

[legenden1]

Fantastic show. Seen them on all tours since Awake and this is one of the best, partly because I really love the album. Was a litte worried about JLB after seeing YouTube-clips but he was surprisingly good. I think they all were very into it last night and it felt. The lights and video was definitely the best I´ve seen from them and the musicianship was, as usual, flawless. Great night!

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

I just got back from the show and my experience was for the most part positive but also some negative and i'm gonna start with the bad because sadly it was a big one for me.

I've seen DT 4 times before, 3 with the MP line up and one with MM and I have never ever heard JLB sing this bad and sloppy to the point that I couldn't stand him and tried hard to focus on the instrumentalists instead. He just couldn't hit the high notes and if he did his tone was still horrible and when he absolutely couldn't go higher he just screamed instead. He very obviously struggled with his vocal parts and maybe he had a bad day or a cold or something but the fact is that he was out of tune alot and even in the mellow parts where he usually sounds great he had a tendency to go sour. I know it sounds harsh but simply put I just can't ignore it because his vocals distracted me too much.
He did have some good moments like in Heaven's Cove which suited his voice for the most part.

When it comes to the good parts of the show I can honestly say everyone else did a really fantastic job but one guy sticks out from the rest and his name is Mike Mangini. He played with such ease and joy despite the monumental workout session his parts are. It's a pleasure watching him play because he's so into it and you can tell he enjoys playing with the band. Love his up/down crash hits!

JR also nailed it other than that single piano tone he accidently hit before a song. 
His piano intros worked really well especially The X Aspect, it's such a beautiful piano part along with the choir.

Both Myung and JP played solid as usual.

The overall sound was pretty balanced although imo MMs toms and cymbals disappeared a bit in the mix.

The stage production worked great although yes there were some cheap CGI but to be honest it didn't bother me that much. Overall it was great with the quite parts being especially enjoyable.

The sitting down in theater worked pretty well although at one point I thought the whole freakin theater entered my row, especially annoying with the 10 people being late after the intermission and are looking for their seats.

[SwedishGoose]

I agree with you on JLBs voice yesterday... he struggled quite a bit
In Act 2 when Gabriel lost his voice I thought JLB would loose his as well but he went back and drank something and when he came back it was better.
Vocally I prefer the 1st show in Stockholm compared with the second. Technically also the 1st.
There was two times during the show yesterday when the screens just blacked out. Don't remember that from the night before. Seem to remember animations from those parts.
Musically they were both great concerts with only a minor error by JR on the second night.

It was really interresting to see the show from 2 perspectives. First night on row 4 so focusing more on details and the musiscians. The second night The second night back a bit and to the left of the stage just where it started to slope up seeing the whole stage and the screens better giving a more movie like experience. I saw things in the animations that I missed the first night because I was too close then.

And talking of seats... what are the odds. Sat on the same row as efx on the first night with him 5 seats to the right and on the second he was two rows in front of me... was great to see you and I loved hearing your experience of recording with the band (fans on SC).

Yesterday was sold out so I guess about 1600 people, the day before it was only 912 in the audience. They had screend parts of the hall of with curtains.

Anyway both were really amazing experiences and for me who have listened a lot to the album and learned the story I had no problems following it. My son had not listened and did not get the story at all... had to fill him in in the intermission and after the show.

Was his first timeseeing DT as he is not really a fan but I figured that this would be such a different show that I wanted to give him the experience. He had a really good time even though he could not follow the story. He was really impressed with the musiscians and espescially with Jordan Rudess as my son plays the piano himself.

Did anyone else hear what JLB said in the end? Did he say "thank you Stockholm... see you again in autumn"? I thought so but am not sure.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

An awesome video of My Last Farewell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuIimoecezM

[CharlesPL]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ykX4jsUWF0

[CharlesPL]

ANB  solo....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdqIGIpg7Jg

[Nofire]

I went to the second show and I really enjoyed it, even though I can't say that it topped the concert at Annexet 2 years ago. I went with my sister who has been a fan for about 10 years but never seen them live, so that was really cool for her!

As people have mentioned, JLB struggled quite a bit, especially in the first set I thought. It seemed as if he had no vocal power at all and his notes died off quickly as soon as he leaned back from the microphone. Even tougher were the softer parts where he had to hit a much higher note than the previous in falsetto. Granted, that type of singing is according to my own experience really challenging, but the guitar/vocal intro to Begin Again was painful to listen to! He was much better when he could use his whole body and sing really loud, especially in Act 2. As with the album, I found the guitar to be much quiter than normal, almost to the point where they should have brought it up more in the mix, as opposed to previous shows I've seen where I could only hear guitar

The highlight of the show was JM on A Life Left Behind, where he doubled Jordans part in the intro. Absolutely incredible and I really wish the bass had ben louder on the album during that particular part. Of course, the solos in A New Beginning also melted my face off.

As for the stage setup, I'm not disappointed, but I almost expected more, like stage props being moved around in order to make the stage look like the palace, Ravenskill and Heaven's Cove. Not sure why I thought they would do this, but in the Eddie Trunk Podcast, JP and JR talked about making the stage represent the various locations, which I interpreted as more than "only" background videos.

All in all though, it was a great experience, as always with DT. I can't wait to see them the next time they come to Sweden, but I hope they do a show more like the previous tour. An evening with, and a wide variety of songs from all albums, hopefully without anniversaries in order to not dedicade half the show to two albums like last time.

[erwinrafael]

Did somebody see this? From Mangini:

"Thank you Oslo and Stockholm for all the smiles I saw from the stage. I noticed so many extra nice smiles that I missed the edge of a high up tube drum the by the Planck Length on one drum fill. Don't tell anyone or a critic will dedicate a YouTube page to such a horrendous playing error ; ) "

 

[ResultsMayVary]

Mangini does get a lot of shit from various online sites for some of the dumbest shit imaginable. It's really funny to see him poke fun at those people.