Black Clouds was the first album where they did not have a proper U.S. headlining tour. And there were hints that, for whatever reason, bookings in the U.S. were getting difficult.
When I interviewed MP before the LA show, he commented that the PN09 tour was the first tour where they were breaking even, which he attributed more to the economy and the fact that they had 3 opening acts to pay for, rather than anything else. Had it been because of booking problems with the promoters, I'm pretty sure he would've said as much.
Perhaps he just thought there would be better, renewed interest if they took off for a while and came back with stronger material. I think that makes more sense than "let's keep doing the same thing, but faster!" I sort of see how Madman says they were in their prime, but I also see many ways they'd tanked out. Returning from a prolonged absence would generate buzz (and hopefully better music).
I think that was very much his thinking. While he'd still defend SC and BCaSL as being as good as everything else they did, not only was he feeling burn out, but he was also seeing the rest of the guys at minimum falling into a rut with the write/record/tour cycle, which is why he wanted to shake things up. And while some may argue that financially it would've been impossible to take a long break (and I agree, an indefinite hiatus, or even one of 5 years is too much), taking a year off to do other things away from the band was both feasible and possible. JR could've continued work on his apps and any solo projects he wanted to, JP on his second solo album (which we are still waiting for), JL on his next solo album and JM on the next Jelly Jam album, as well as touring behind such albums/bands/projects. Coming back after that would've been refreshing and given each of them new experiences to draw from when working on the next DT album.
Of course heading off with a new drummer accomplishes the same thing (well, the first part, anyway).
True - something that MP noted himself.
And Derek is in MP's band now, so I don't find the DT reconnect likely (unless JR AND MM both leave).
As crazy and unrealistic as it is, I can almost imagine a scenario where DT and this new MP/DS band would unite into a single DT lineup, ala Yes's Union lineup. Like I said, it's crazy and unrealistic, but it's something I can't help but think of - not sure why.
I can't remember now whether Portnoy had said that they were having difficulty getting a separate headlining tour booked with some promoters or whether it was JP that said to me that some promoters wouldn't book a headlining tour because they felt that the market was saturated after the other two legs. It may have been both. Again, I don't remember specifically.
What "other two legs" are you speaking of? At that point, they only did the PN09 tour in North America. Or are you referring to both the PN09 leg and the leg opening for Maiden? As far as I know, while there may have been some initial plans to do a headlining run in the summer of 2010, I think early on that was squashed, but not because of problems with the promoters, but rather to shake things up more (and break free of the touring cycle they were in: warmup/festival tour Europe in the early summer, tour North America, proper album tour of Europe, tour Asia, tour South America and do a final run through North America again). The Maiden thing came up when they weren't expecting it, and the took the opportunity since they knew it would be good exposure and this sort of offer didn't happen all the time. Had Maiden not offered the opening slot, the shows in South America would've marked the end of the tour.
What I DO specifically recall is that when I talked to JP on the ADTOE tour, I said something along the lines of: "I know some fans were disappointed that there wasn't a proper headlining tour for Black Clouds. With only doing Prog Nation and a limited run of opening dates for Maiden, it feels like the touring dropped off significantly in the U.S. for that album. With a band like Dream Theater that is big enough to make a good living, but not huge, it seems to me like a hiatus would be a huge momentum killer, and that you guys needed to ramp things back up to normal levels before thinking about a break. Am I off base here?" John agreed with my take pretty enthusiastically, although we didn't get into too much more detail than that. But it was enough to confirm my suspicions about why the idea of a break was not well received by them.
I think JP said as much when doing interviews shortly after MP split, commenting (I'm paraphrasing) on how they had just played MSG (opening for Maiden), and that on the next tour, how it might be possible for them to play that venue themselves.
Also want to note that it's interesting Prognation seemed to be more of a reaction to the lack of interest from promoters rather than just something Mike wanted to do.
Not at all. MP wanted to mix things up even more - I think it's clear that he doesn't like to fall into a rut with anything. And even with touring, this is true. So that's why for a time they did Evening With shows, then had opening bands again, and finally ProgNation. Plus he wanted to be able to "give back" to the music community by giving some of these deserving bands more exposure than they would probably get otherwise.
Barto, the problem wasn't that things were declining while they were doing the same old thing. Things declined a bit because the touring--which is their bread and butter, financially speaking--was done differently on the Black Clouds tour cycle than in the past. They got things back on track by doing more of a "normal" (for them) tour cycle with the next album. Of course, the buzz of Mangini in the band may have helped. But the proof is in the numbers for the next two tours. Things more or less normalized for them.
To a degree things might have normalized for them, but then again, there are reports even in Europe of audiences shrinking, let alone what we saw especially with the second North American leg of the Astonishing tour. So just getting back into the normal swing of things isn't necessarily the answer either.
The majority of DT fans are there to see DT, not 3 more bands.
I think that was true without a doubt. Maybe a decent chunk were there for ZPZ, but not for the other bands. But again, the reasoning behind PN was to give other smaller bands more exposure.