Your most memorable/best experiences from seeing DT live

[nightmare_cinema]

One of the shows on the 8VM tour which began with The Root of All Evil, and the lights coming on just as the heavy riff kicked in. It was freakin' epic, that song is built to be an opener, the excitement just grew crazily with the entrance of each instrument (drums 'WOOOOOOOH PORTNOYYYYYY'S ON THE STAAAAAAAAGEEEEE!!!' and the initial riff was the perfect entrace for LaBrie to storm onto the stage... just pure goosebumps even remembering it.

Catching Portnoy's stick at the end of one of their gigs in Blackburn.

Sod it, I've seen then 8 times so far and every single one of those gigs has had moments in it I've wanted to catch and keep forever for the warm fuzzies they created.

[lonestar]

Seeing them do Six Degrees, especially Solitary Shell.

On the FIA tour, when they hit the middle part of ACOS.


There cover of Master of Puppets.

[vulcandj]

SFAM in it's entirity in San Francisco, mainly during the Overture when all the stage lights come on right after the intro of the song. That was cool. And I must admit that BITS this past September in San Francisco was really cool.

[coffees for closers]

The Score show at Radio City. Raise the knife was amazing as was Octavarium and Six Degress.

[TAC]

I love when you get into the venue before the show..and then you see them:

JP's metal footrests!

[dtnj]

Back to back weendends on the Octvarium Tour. Sunday at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park and the following Satuday @ Radio City.

[lonestar]

SFAM in it's entirity in San Francisco, mainly during the Overture when all the stage lights come on right after the intro of the song. That was cool. And I must admit that BITS this past September in San Francisco was really cool.

I was at both those shows.

[jcmistat]

Speaking of SFAM Through My Words/Fatal Tragedy at SF was amazing. This tours intro leading into BITS is too good. I can't get the thought out of my head of a DVD/Blu Ray of this tour.

[Bardic Tortoise]

My favorite moment (or series of moments) from this tour has been waiting in line for four hours with fans for good GA seats. Then, when we're finally in and have been sufficiently rocked by Trivium, the stage crew comes out and starts setting up for DT. Trivium's backdrop comes down slowly and the very tip of MM's drumkit becomes visible---just some of the higher cymbals and octobans---and the entire crowd starts cheering.

[YtseBitsySpider]

seeing six degrees live, the encore with Queensryche and both drummers on the same kit, the booming cello from the Psycho Theme with the lights completely out....then Metropolis starting...

[Mladen]

I saw Dream Theater only twice, two years ago and this summer. It's sad that I don't really remember a lot of things from the first show, because I was tired as hell and was focused most of the time on surviving. But this year I tried really hard to take a mental picture of every single moment - and the one that still gives me goosebumps was the moment James entered the stage on Under a glass moon. I just loved it, such an epic entrance. 

[jcmistat]

My favorite moment (or series of moments) from this tour has been waiting in line for four hours with fans for good GA seats. Then, when we're finally in and have been sufficiently rocked by Trivium, the stage crew comes out and starts setting up for DT. Trivium's backdrop comes down slowly and the very tip of MM's drumkit becomes visible---just some of the higher cymbals and octobans---and the entire crowd starts cheering.

That happened for me too. Once Mangini's kit was revealed the crowd went wild. Comparing the kit for Trivium, my buddy behind me was like, "Now that's a drum kit!"

[DebraKadabra]

Jealous of all you bastards who were at RCMH for Score.

UBER jelly.

I definitely agree with nightmare_cinema--ALL of the DT shows I've been to have special moments, but the baseball score update by JP during the most recent Grand Prairie show was just too friggin funny.

[Riceball]

My most memorable experience is probably a bit of a sad one, but unique all the same!

My first, and only to date, DT show was their first show in my home city (Perth, Australia) on the Constant Motion tour. So much awesomeness with that show. First up, there was a whole bunch of stuff that went wrong in the lead up to the concert, aptly summarised by this here video:

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

Cool thing number 1: This video was played before the show started! I had seen in on the MP Forum in the days leading up to, but it was really cool to see something that a fan (I believe SteveJohnson...?) made parodying the band got a run. Super cool.

Cool thing number 2: It was an evening with show, and so the set was awesome!

Set List:
1. The Downfall of Dream Theater in Perth (intro video)
2. 2008: An Ant Odyssey (intro video)
3. Also sprach Zarathustra
4. Constant Motion
5. Panic Attack
6. Endless Sacrifice
7. The Dark Eternal Night
8. keyboard solo
9. Lines in the Sand
10. Forsaken
11. I Walk Beside You
12. Take the Time (abridged)
~~~intermission~~~
13. Overture 1928
14. Strange Deja Vu
15. Through My Words
16. Fatal Tragedy
17. Erotomania
18. Voices
--------------------------
16. The Spirit Carries On
17. In the Presence of Enemies
~~~encore~~~
18. Pull Me Under/
19. Metropolis pt.1

You can imagine the 'gasms I was having at getting to see a large chunk of my top 20 in the one show! Clear highlight, however, was:

Cool thing number 3: Having the Overture 1928 opening bars come on over the PA after the intermission out of nowhere! Everyone went insane, particularly as we kept moving through the first part of Scenes. Erotomania & Voices were also great; but then...

Not-so-cool-but-pretty-unique number 1: Something noticeably was wrong during Voices, the boys started playing slightly out of sync and JLB was a little off on his timing (but still signing like a beast). Turns out, they had blown up the venues back end sound system. Like, literally, blew up, as in not working anymore. As a result, the show had to end there and then, which was very sad. In saying that though, we still had about 2.25 hours of DT musical epicness and its certainly a concert I'll never forget.

Moving on to Australia trip number two, however, and we go full circle.

I didn't go to the show, I was out of town. But my brother did and had a meet n greet ticket. Now, being as awesome at shows as he is in terms of getting stuff, he managed to score a copy of the set list which was taped to the stage before the roadies got to it (thats how I was able to fill in the rest of the set below the line). He took it to the M&G to be signed and MP asked him where he got that from. Bro promptly replied, in a weak, fanboyish voice, that "it was the set list from the last show". Mike apparently went wow cool didn't know anyone scored one of those! He signed it, and then:

Cool thing number 4: HE DREW A LINE UNDER WHERE THE SET ENDED AND SAID LETS FINISH THE SET! And they promptly played Spirit and the Metropolis/PMU medley - which they hadn't done for the rest of the tour. I don't know if it was always the plan, but I choose to believe it wasn't. How cool is that.

Anyway, that ended up being really long.

[Loser1]

I've seen DT at least 10 times, but here's what stands out:
2004 When Dream and Day re-unite show. Got to chill backstage and meet everyone afterwards. Had dinner with Setlist Scotty. Good times.
2005 Met JP at a clinic. He gave us all tickets to the Gigantour show that night in Tampa.
2006 Radio City Music Hall - Score show. Got to hang with Setlist Scotty again, and had lunch with Weymo and a few others.
2009 Got to meet Portnoy at a music store meet and greet before a show that night in Clearwater.

[obscure]

Jealous of all you bastards who were at RCMH for Score.

UBER jelly.

I'll join you two.... 

[Setlist Scotty]

There have been many memorable experiences for me seeing the band live - honestly MP had told me about the plans orchestra at the RCMH show back in Sept 05, so it wasn't a surprise for me, but that whole concert still was amazing.

My first DT show also stands out - seeing them at the Summerfest Rock stage in Milwaukee on 6/29/93. So happy that Laser 103 did a live broadcast of that show which I later got. An awesome show with some surprises - this new intro to Take the Time (Puppies on Acid), the changed intro to Status Seeker (much better IMO - wish they would have used it for WDaDR) and a "new" song called To Live Forever with a long guitar improv outro and drum solo. And I can't forget about another new song they played for the encore - Eve before they played my favorite DT song of all time (still to this day): Learning to Live.

Also the performance of WDaDU in its entirety at the 3/6/04 show in LA (which I didn't know about) was awesome, especially considering that WDaDU was my first DT album (been a fan since 89) and it is one of my favorite albums by them despite the production.

Another favorite performance was seeing them do Rush's The Necromancer - when they first started to play it, I thought they were doing Peruvian Skies, which made no sense since they had already played that song earlier in the set. So I stood there trying to figure out what this song was they were doing - why was it soooo recognizable but yet I didn't know what it was? Finally I realized it was The Necromancer...but there's NO way they're gonna do the whole thing - so after the first section of the song, I was certain they were gonna play something else. But they continued on with the second section. Then I was certain they would play a different song - they wouldn't do the whole song - but they did! Blew my mind and I loved every minute of it. IMO, that performance was far superior to the original album version.

There are at least a few honorable mentions - the improv that was done at the 9/5/04 Madison WI show was amazing. Getting to see one of the only 2 performances of Disappear (my favorite from SDoIT) live in NY. The wide variety of songs performed during the Evening With shows for World Tourbulence, the Train of Thought  and Octavarium tours. And I can't forget about the changes/additions to many of the songs when they've performed them live - the "Tool jam" added to Lie on World Tourbulence, the extended versions of LitS as played on World Tourbulence and Chaos in Motion, the extended version of LtL on the Octavarium tour just to name a few.

[red barchetta]

I would add to what I've already said that when they opened for Iron Maiden in Montreal, the power went out totally for about 15 minutes.  The band left the stage but Portnoy stayed and started talking to the crowd of the first rows.  Crew members were all over the stage trying to find the problem while MP was kind of cooperating with the crowd and the crew.  Then he sat on his drum kit and played with no mikes the louder he could.  Made a solo and perform beats like Run to the hills of Maiden and others.  A great moment from a unique drummer and character.  Thanks a lot Mike, you were special.

[Flacracker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOHg3rXKWl0&t=427

What in the name of god...

[theseoafs]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOHg3rXKWl0&t=427

What in the name of god...

No, Pull Me Under.

[hefdaddy42]

without question it was the moment the curtains were pulled back at RCMH to reveal the orchestra

this

really the amazing experience was hearing Six Degrees straight though live, let alone with an orchestra, let alone at Radio City, let alone the fact that it was the last show of the tour, let alone the fact that this show was going to be released as a DVD.

fuck yea

All of this.

[bucksanchez51]

Jordan pointed at me and my friend during Learning to Live in Syracuse in 2004. Great memories.

[EdenHazard]

Saw them 5 times by now and there were many emotional moments for me, but my top 3:

1. Announcement of "Images and Words" being played in its entirety
2. The acoustic section of TCOT
3. The first notes of "Under A Glass Moon"

[tartarus250]

mike continuing his drum solo right round the outside of his kit last time they were in glasgow oh and promising that they would be back soon :-( i know they are coming back but it will be without him and that makes me sad i know we are going to get the genie and he is amazing but it still wont be mike

[Setlist Scotty]

An Evening With Dream Theater

Orpheum Theater - Boston - 2002

They did 6DOIT in it's entirety and played for over 3 hours doing most of Images & Words, a bunch of tracks from Falling Into Infinity and A Change of Seasons as well.

My mind <-----Blown

Think you're getting yer Bahstan shows mixed up - the 3/22/02 show did have the title track of SDoIT played (as well as the drum duel between MP and MM), but it was the 4/1/04 show that had ACoS. 

[sonatafanica]

was watching dream theater play and at one point I was not really paying attention much, my cigarette slipped in my hand a bit and I burned myself

Would not have been such a ~~bad experience~~~*~£~*~~ if maybe I had not gotten a boner from it

I still am not sure if it was from the pain or the lack of interest in dream theaters James labrie singing off key and wailing about some bullshit about down's syndrome or something

but I was hard as a goddamn rock right there and I don't know if you've ever jerked off in a public restroom but it's just as amazing as you would expect really


To this day I am pretty sure I saw Randy Newman washing his hands in the sink as I walked out to wash the dicksweat off my hands

I told him about the boner, regret nothing



Sent from my iPhone

[Dillster22]

was watching dream theater play and at one point I was not really paying attention much, my cigarette slipped in my hand a bit and I burned myself

Would not have been such a ~~bad experience~~~*~£~*~~ if maybe I had not gotten a boner from it

I still am not sure if it was from the pain or the lack of interest in dream theaters James labrie singing off key and wailing about some bullshit about down's syndrome or something

but I was hard as a goddamn rock right there and I don't know if you've ever jerked off in a public restroom but it's just as amazing as you would expect really


To this day I am pretty sure I saw Randy Newman washing his hands in the sink as I walked out to wash the dicksweat off my hands

I told him about the boner, regret nothing



Sent from my iPhone

.............

[missedthepoint]

Best experience for pure musical awesomeness was seeing them on the SFAM tour at The Academy 1 in Manchester.
The whole of SFAM from start to finish, wow, was speechless.

An incident that happened at a gig on the FII tour at The Academy 2, known then as MDH, will always stay with me.
Me and some freinds arrived in plenty time to see Rudess Morgenstein project from the front and managed to hold our place in the second row. As the techs were setting the stage for DT, two rather tall fortysomething southerners who had apparently been drinking forced there way infront of us and began shouting at the techies on stage,
"Four fuckin years, we've been waiting for this for four fucking years you bastards!!"
This went on for some time until a rather large roadie, who to this day I refer to as 'Big Mike' but in actuality  was probably just a large american roadie, told them in no uncertain terms to "Shut the fuck up!"
This didn't didn't go down well with the louder of the two which sparked the following,
"Make me! YOU'RE JUST A FAT FUCKING AMERICAN!!"   To which 'Big Mike' responded with, "And you're a fucking DICK HEAD!"

Oh how we laughed 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Well I don't have any crazy stories about the big-ass shows like RCMH, but up here in Toronto, my favourite DT concert ever will probably always be the joint tour with Joe Satriani at the Molson Amphitheatre.  First off, it was two insane bands in one show.  Secondly, it was the debut of the Instrumedley, and none of us saw it coming at all.  They just busted it out of nowhere.  When they broke into Ytse Jam intro and hit that big pause before the main riff, Portnoy stands up behind the kit, yells "Play ball!" and throws a goddamn soccer ball onto the stage.  Petrucci and Myung proceed to kick the ball around while playing the Ytse Jam, and for the rest of the medley.  Our minds were well and truly blown that night.