Seems bizarre that Metropolis would be a song they choose to omit, along with LTL. Love the youth and energy of the show. Much prefer the look to the all-black ultra serious tone of today.
Yep its like one big teaser,
Correct me if I am wrong I only started listening to dream theater around 1998 but maybe during the 1992 to 1993 era Metropolis is not that big of a fan favorite yet? Like during the time its more "Pull me under" and Take the time thing?
Good question. When did Metropolis Part I become a fan favorite? I got into the band in 2001. Images & Words was the first album I bought and Metropolis Part I was instantly my favorite song from that album. Still is.
It seems Metropolis was always noteworthy. The show after its debut, and the band's biggest show until then (opening for Marillion), it was their opener. Their next gig, it was the first non-instrumental they performed, with the debut of their new singer, Steve Stone. It was the opener of their following, all-instrumental show, and was one of five I&W songs they played opening for Iron Maiden (as well as at three preceeding warm-up shows to get used to performing with James). On the I&W tour, it opened every show except for two. Even then, those two shows were on the third leg of the tour, in the northeastern US, so changing it up a bit was understandable. In addition it was the set closer on both of those shows, which is still a major slot. An extended version was the encore on nearly every Awake show. The only exceptions are "The Rudess Experiment" and the cover show at Ronnie Scott's, although it was not extended at a single Japanese show due to time constraints from its PPV broadcast. DT did not take take a break from Metropolis until they debuted the new, improved A Change of Seasons in mid-1995. It returned in December of 1996 (after a year-long break from touring at all), apparently in new form. (My parents were at one of these five shows, and I'm pretty sure it was the first DT show either had attended.) This version was again the encore for many shows in a row, and curiously it moved into the set closer slot for two shows of the American leg again (1997, a tour that I may well have attended in utero). It was not the encore on one, maybe two shows in early April 1998, and it is omitted from 2-5 shows in June 1998. It returned to close out every performance with ELP and Deep Purple in August.
So, with only a couple dozen exceptions, Metropolis was played nonstop from Charlie Dominici's last two shows until mid to late 1998, and almost always in a prime slot. Instant hit I suppose? Perhaps its status came about because it was the opener on DT's biggest tour, when they had mainstream attention. It is obviously a great track to open a show or an encore, so it makes sense it would be so prominent when they had such a small library, and then it became a fan favorite through repeated plays as it got "classic."
In December of 1998, DT did a few small intimate shows of acoustic songs, unreleased songs, and covers. On my bootleg of the performance at Toad's Place (yes, I sought out a bootleg because my parents were there), MP jokingly remarked at the beginning of the show that there would be no Metropolis nor Pull Me Under, indicating its status as an "overplayed hit" even then.
Here's the remaining live history of Metropolis Part 1 for the curious.