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Offline rumborak

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The "DT's opening acts" thread
« on: February 06, 2017, 04:56:34 PM »
Back in the olden days, DT used to have opening acts, and I always enjoyed that. Sure, sometimes they sucked (Tiles, I'm looking at you), but I also got exposed to Spock's Beard through that.

Who did you see DT with? And, what would you say about DT bringing back the opening act?
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Offline bosk1

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2017, 05:00:57 PM »
Let's see...

-King's X and Joe Satriani.  King's X was awesome.  Satch bored me to tears.
-Fates Warning and Queensryche.  Great show all around.
-Trivium.  Awesome.
-Krimson Projekt.  Bored.

All other shows I have seen have been evening with.
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Offline Anguyen92

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2017, 05:03:17 PM »
I think Trivium or Periphery is a good shoutout for opening acts if DT choose to roll with that option again. 

I always love the format of the no opening acts, go three hour shows (and that applies to any band with a big catalog), but DT isn't getting any younger and I'm sure them playing these long sets (with the exception of the small Europe tour in 2015) are taking quite a toll on them.

Offline krands85

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2017, 06:33:39 PM »
2 of the 4 shows I've seen were 'Evening With', so no opening act. One of the other times Periphery were supporting, but I wasn't really interested in seeing them, so skipped their set. The first time I saw DT was Prog Nation '09, with Unexpect, Bigelf and Opeth. I missed the start of Unexpect, but they were quite interesting in their own way. Bigelf were pretty enjoyable too, though I've very rarely listened to either band since. I love Opeth though (and have seen them a couple more times since), so that was great.

Generally, I would prefer to see an evening with show. However, when I see the band in a couple of months, I'll finally get to see my favourite 2 songs - plus it'll be my 5th time seeing the band in 7.5 years - so I'd be a bit more laid back about having an opening act in the future. Obviously if it was a band I already liked, that would be ideal. Sometimes you get lucky like that (eg. Myrath supporting Symphony X, Anathema supporting Opeth), but a lot of the time it's a band that doesn't really interest you and you wish the main band played longer.

Of course, with DT getting on in years, support bands may start becoming the norm.
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Offline Setlist Scotty

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2017, 09:22:32 PM »
Let's see...

I think I caught the tail end of Galactic Cowboys set when I saw DT for the first time, but I wasn't familiar with any of their music, so I couldn't make a judgement call either way. I missed almost all of I Mother Earth's set in 94, but what little I heard didn't do anything for me. Saw Big Wreck twice and neither time impressed me; it would be interesting to go back and listen to their music now to see if I'd appreciate it or not. I vaguely remember Full On the Mouth opening for DT in May of 1998 - I was more into them than Big Wreck, but still they didn't do much for me.

I managed to see Spock's Beard open for them several times in 2000, and they were the first band I really enjoyed despite not knowing much of their material. Actually, seeing them live moved me to pick up their (then) new album V. Also saw the Dixie Dregs open for them in LA both nights, and the music was enjoyable but not enough for me to want to check them out further.

In 2002, I saw DT with King's X and Satch twice and they were great to see, altho I already was very familiar with both bands. Same thing for the 2003 tour with Queensryche and Fates Warning - probably the best bill DT was on with other bands, altho I'd always taken Evening With shows over shows with an opener at any time.

I saw them open for Yes - does that count?  :biggrin:  Caught 2 shows on Gigantour, altho none of the other bands besides Megadeth and Symphony X did anything for me. And even with Symphony X, I was disappointed the way they "phoned in" the backing vocals by using pre-recorded tapes instead of doing them live...just like DT's been doing of late *sigh*

The openers in 2007 were a mixed bag. Into Eternity was interesting to watch, and their lead vocalist was definitely talented altho I hated his cookie monster vocals. Those vocals were enough to turn me off to giving them a chance. Redemption's music was pretty good, but I remember them being pretty boring to watch live.

For ProgNation 2008, I made sure to catch 3's set, having seen them before opening for Porcupine Tree, and they continued to deliver. However, since I can't stand cookie monster vocals, I skipped both BtBaM and Opeth's sets.

I missed out seeing Scale the Summit for the one ProgNation 2009 show I saw, but Bigelf and ZPZ were both impressive. Bigelf was definitely more accessible to my ears, so I got more into their set than I did ZPZ. Don't get me wrong, ZPZ are extremely talented to play Frank's music; it's just that I'm not a FZ fan at all, so while the band was entertaining enough, the music itself did little for me, even tho I knew it took great skill to perform it well.

Didn't bother watching Trivium's set either time they opened for the same reason as several others - the harsh vocals were a complete turn off. But I did catch Andy McKee opening for them and he was very entertaining, both with his music and performance, and the inbetween song banter. The last opener I saw was Crimson Projeckt. Like ZPZ, I know the music was challenging to play and the guys were entertaining enough, but I'm not into KC's music, so their set fell flat for me.
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Offline DarkLord_Lalinc

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2017, 09:31:40 PM »
I will forever be grateful to DT for exposing me to Andy McKee.
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Offline Schurftkut

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2017, 09:51:42 PM »
I saw Pain of Salvation as an opener on the 6doit first leg, besides that i remember them being there, it didn't make an impression. I did check them out 5yrs later of so, and really liked some of their stuff. I wouldn't have known them if portnoy didn't bring them up a few times.

Offline Cool Chris

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2017, 11:33:44 PM »
Trivium, which wasn't my thing.

Presto Ballet, whom I had never heard of prior to (or since), but was totally impressed with. I would've paid the price of admission to see them alone.
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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2017, 11:56:44 PM »
Cynic, Periphery and Kadavar. None of them blew me away.

Offline Bertielee

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2017, 12:00:41 AM »
Vanden Plas (Toulouse 1998), which I liked a lot.

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Offline Zydar

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2017, 12:48:24 AM »
I saw them on Progressive Nation in 2009, which had Opeth, Bigelf and Unexpect as opening acts. I was already a fan of Opeth so I enjoyed them the most. Bigelf was alright, but Unexpect didn't do much for me.
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Online MirrorMask

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2017, 02:50:26 AM »
Tiles in 1999
Pain of Salvation in 2002
Symphony X in 2007
Periphery in 2012


Out of these, I prefer Symphony X by far. Was intrigued by Pain of Salvation at the time, I still remember after all this time that the third song played by Tiles was nice, and Periphery left me unimpressed.
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Offline Destiny Of Chaos

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2017, 05:50:18 AM »
I've seen them with a few openers.... but Redemption really stands out. I saw three of the Chaos in Motion tour shows and Redemption blew me away. I now own all of their albums and they are a top 10 band for me.

I've also seen DT serve as the opener for Maiden in 2010... one of Portnoy's last legs with the band.

Online Chino

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2017, 05:59:27 AM »
Redemption and Bigelf were awesome. Haven't stayed current with Bigelf, but I still listen to Redemption.

At the CT prognation show in 09, I met the lead singer of Bigelf out in the lobby shortly after their set. Dude was wasted out of his mind. When I went to shake his hand, he extended his and started puking. Luckily there was a trashcan 3 feet away  :lol

Offline Destiny Of Chaos

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2017, 06:29:41 AM »
Redemption and Bigelf were awesome. Haven't stayed current with Bigelf, but I still listen to Redemption.

At the CT prognation show in 09, I met the lead singer of Bigelf out in the lobby shortly after their set. Dude was wasted out of his mind. When I went to shake his hand, he extended his and started puking. Luckily there was a trashcan 3 feet away  :lol

That's insane. Dude definitely looks crazy under normal circumstances.

Offline mikeyd23

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2017, 06:43:56 AM »
Back in the olden days, DT used to have opening acts, and I always enjoyed that. Sure, sometimes they sucked (Tiles, I'm looking at you), but I also got exposed to Spock's Beard through that.

Who did you see DT with? And, what would you say about DT bringing back the opening act?

I've seen them with a couple different openers on the Prog Nation tour, I saw Trivium open for them (which was a good set), beatallica (which was great as well), I saw DT open for some band called Iron Maiden (bunch of nobodies), probably some others I am forgetting.

I wanted to address the bolded section of the OP though, doesn't seem like many others are. I love evening with sets from DT. In fact, I remember lurking here before MP left, and even after I started posting when MM was first in the band, everyone seemed to be complaining that they weren't doing evening with shows. So is the feeling different because they have done, what like 2 and 1/2 tours in a row that were evening with sets? For me, that's still my favorite bill for a DT show.

Offline Peter Mc

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2017, 07:02:25 AM »
Off the top of my head as follows:

Rudess Morgenstein Project
Pain of Salvation
Porcupine Tree
Spock's Beard
Symphony X
Opeth/Big Elf/ (Prog Nation)

Not a bad little line up compared to most bands opening acts which are usually woeful.  I'm guessing we have a certain Mr Portnoy to thank for most, if not all, of these. 

Got to say though that I much prefer to see the longer sets with no support.

Offline rumborak

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2017, 08:37:27 AM »
I managed to see Spock's Beard open for them several times in 2000, and they were the first band I really enjoyed despite not knowing much of their material. Actually, seeing them live moved me to pick up their (then) new album V.

Exact same thing happened with me. Had never heard of SB, but was totally floored by the performance. Picked up V right after. Those were the days still when DT was more of a prog band than a metal band, so having SB open made sense.
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Offline DarkLord_Lalinc

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2017, 08:47:26 AM »
Redemption and Bigelf were awesome. Haven't stayed current with Bigelf, but I still listen to Redemption.
Redemption were awesome, but I remember Bigelf being like kind of meh to me. I mean, they're a cool rock band but there are literally hundreds of thousands of 'cool' rock bands out there and they didn't really stand out to me in that way.
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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #19 on: February 07, 2017, 10:13:13 AM »
I enjoyed Fates Warning well enough, but didn't know any of their music. Crimson Projekt was awesome. They're the reason I drove to Austin to see the show, rather than DT, and actually blew DT away. The next show back in Dallas DT redeemed themselves with an inspired performance. For the most part I'm usually out in the parking lot during opening acts. I'm not 18 anymore and see no reason to subject myself to loud music I won't care for.
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Offline Metro

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2017, 11:50:35 AM »
I've seen them twice.
1st time on the Progressive Nation '09 tour in DC. I only saw the last few minutes of Scale the Summit's set. Checked out some of there stuff online later on and it's not really my thing. Bigelf was ok, and Zappa Plays Zappa was cool but I'm not a big fan of jam bands. Queensryche was also there for that show only, and the older stuff they played was great but the songs from their most recent album at the time(American Soldier) were really dull.

2nd time was in Richmond, VA on the Dramatic Tour of Events with Crimson ProjeKct opening. They mainly played stuff from the 80's era of King Crimson, which I love, so that was pretty awesome. I loved the drum duel during Indiscipline.

Offline Tony From Long Island

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #21 on: February 07, 2017, 11:58:52 AM »
Trying to decide between   Damn the Machine and Big Wreck as my favorite DT opening band.     

I really love Damn the Machine's self-titled   (only??) album.


I also saw them with The James Young Band.   


At this point, I could do without an opening band.
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Offline As I Am

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #22 on: February 07, 2017, 12:31:08 PM »
Missed a bunch in the earlier shows just because I wasn't in venue yet or just not paying attention, but:
Big Wreck =  :tdwn
Dixie Dregs =  :tup
Joe Satriani =  :tup :tup
Kings X =  :tup
Fates Warning =  :tup :tup (the show I saw in Tampa, QR actually closed show)
Symphony X =  :tup :tup
Into Eternity =  :tdwn :tdwn
Redemption =  :tup :tup :tup
3 =  :tup
BTB&M =  :tdwn
Opeth =  :tdwn
Scale The Summit =  :tup
Bigelf =  :tup :tup :tup
Zappa Plays Zappa =  :tdwn
Periphery =  :tdwn
Trivium =  :tdwn
Crimson Projekt =  :tdwn





Offline CrimsonSunrise

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #23 on: February 07, 2017, 03:10:25 PM »
The vast majority of my shows were Evening With shows, 9 I think.  Of the few shows with opening acts the only one that really stood out to me was Zappa Plays Zappa.  That one mostly because Steve Vai jammed with them  :hat

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #24 on: February 07, 2017, 05:54:08 PM »
I always thought I Mother Earth on the Awake tour was a pretty strange choice.


For two of the three Boston I&W shows, a band called Moodcrush opened. They were fantastic. 20 years later I tracked down their CD, which sucks, but they were so impressive live.
would have thought the same thing but seeing the OP was TAC i immediately thought Maiden or DT related
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Offline red barchetta

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #25 on: February 07, 2017, 06:40:34 PM »
I'm not crazy about opening acts. For the whole amount of shows I have seen, not even a handful of bands have caught my attention. But Dweezel Zappa was a discovery to me. A great guitar player and fun music, I really enjoyed it.
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Offline TheCountOfNYC

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #26 on: February 07, 2017, 07:01:09 PM »
I've only seen Dream Theater twice and both were evening with shows. I have discovered quite a few bands through them opening for the headliner I was going to see (Machine Head, In This Moment, and Dorothy chief among them) and I usually enjoy when bands have an opening act, but for Dream Theater I definitely think an opener would take away from the show since it leaves less time for Dream Theater to play and with the long runtime of a lot of their best songs, it makes more sense for them to play three hours by themselves.
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Offline RaiseTheKnife

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #27 on: February 07, 2017, 09:39:56 PM »
Basically, all the bands mentioned in Scotty's post (minus Galactic Cowboys because I did not go to any '93 shows), plus:

Josh Finn Band (1994 Berklee)
Einstein and Beth Hard Band (Providence Fix for 96)
Our Lady Peace and Mighty Joe Plum (WHJY Birthday Show 1998)

Offline V_R11

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #28 on: February 08, 2017, 04:05:30 AM »
They had Anathema in 2015 for the European 30th anniversary tour - At least in Finland. Anathema's luggage had gotten lost when they flew in so they did an acoustic set in their pajamas! It was different but they sure made the  best of the situation, sounded great
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Offline Destiny Of Chaos

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #29 on: February 08, 2017, 05:44:17 AM »
I've seen them twice.
1st time on the Progressive Nation '09 tour in DC. I only saw the last few minutes of Scale the Summit's set. Checked out some of there stuff online later on and it's not really my thing. Bigelf was ok, and Zappa Plays Zappa was cool but I'm not a big fan of jam bands. Queensryche was also there for that show only, and the older stuff they played was great but the songs from their most recent album at the time(American Soldier) were really dull.

2nd time was in Richmond, VA on the Dramatic Tour of Events with Crimson ProjeKct opening. They mainly played stuff from the 80's era of King Crimson, which I love, so that was pretty awesome. I loved the drum duel during Indiscipline.

I was also at that show in Columbia. Seeing Queensryche perform Screaming in Digital was definitely a highlight for me.

Offline bosk1

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #30 on: February 08, 2017, 07:58:30 AM »
I had forgotten about Redemption.  Honestly, they did nothing for me when I saw them, and if that was all I had to go off of, I never would have become a fan.  The performance felt phoned in all around, but Ray was especially flat, and the sound was so muddy you couldn't make anything out.  That was my first exposure to them, and it really left me cold.  It wasn't until I would later hear Snowfall that I became a big Redemption guy.
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Offline Tony From Long Island

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #31 on: February 08, 2017, 08:57:18 AM »
I always thought I Mother Earth on the Awake tour was a pretty strange choice.


I must have seen DT with I Mother Earth, but I have no recollection of doing so.  I saw a few shows on that tour.
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Offline IdoSC

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #32 on: February 08, 2017, 02:58:01 PM »
I mean I'll take Evening With's any day.

I haven't seen them with Trivium but I'd like to hear more of that bands (or similar bands) any day.

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #33 on: February 09, 2017, 12:46:38 AM »
They had Anathema in 2015 for the European 30th anniversary tour - At least in Finland. Anathema's luggage had gotten lost when they flew in so they did an acoustic set in their pajamas! It was different but they sure made the  best of the situation, sounded great
Yeah, that was a great performance! I'd been an Anathema fan for 4 years already and seen them once before as a headliner, but that acoustic support show felt a lot more special because of the circumstances and the atmosphere.

Offline Architeuthis

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Re: The "DT's opening acts" thread
« Reply #34 on: February 09, 2017, 10:23:20 AM »
Prog Nation tour 2008 in Seattle had a really good line-up.
 3
 Between the Buried and Me
 Opeth
      Personally, I thought 3 was the most refeshing and charming out of those bands. They were very melodic and had a very tight rhythem section with good vocals and guitar solos. The lead singer also whales on the acoustic! I ended up buying their album later (The End is Begun), it has a really catchy song called "All That Remains"..
 Of course DT were incredible that night!
« Last Edit: February 09, 2017, 10:34:53 AM by Architeuthis »
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