Dream Theater: The Astonishing (now with moment of betrayal!)

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Can´t help but thinking part of this stems from Labrie´s enthousiasm of working on Ayreon´s theater performance.  Guess it rubbed off on the other guys.

The timing is kinda off though. They started writing the material for this album during DT12 tour. They went into the studio in january, and was pretty much done recording the backing tracks (guitars, drums, bass and keys) in june. When I spoke to them in July, what was missing at that point were vocals, overdubs and "effects" (i'm guessing narration and embellishments). The Theater Equation was at the end of september. Last day of recording was september 25th. There's no way that the theater performance had any influence on the album.

If anything influenced the band, it'd be older stuff like the obvious (2112, The Wall) - but I also see newer stuff being in their arsenal (like Circle of Illusion's Jeremias, which was one of JRs featured albums back in may, or Ayreon's Theory of Everything which JR appeared on).

Not saying he was influenced but remember though that Labrie was booked for The Theater Equation in may 2014 and i'm pretty sure they pitched him the whole project/idea before he signed on. So he was well aware of the project and what was going to happen on the stage before entering the studio with DT. Dosen't mean he was influenced by this for DT13 though, i'm just saying...

[aurorablind]

More songtitles on The Astonishing-page!!!

[BlobVanDam]

I'm still seeing the same 17 for act I.

[aurorablind]

Sorry... Didn't read enough of the thread

[BlobVanDam]

Sorry... Didn't read enough of the thread

Having read the entire thread myself, I'd say you were probably better off that way.

Do they even advertise these updates anywhere, or do they expect people to randomly check the page every so often? I haven't seen any updates mentioned on FB or Twitter since the page first went up.

[noxon]

I agree, it's really weird that we've had two shadow updates on the page with no other channels commenting on them...

[Stef1]

Sorry... Didn't read enough of the thread

Having read the entire thread myself, I'd say you were probably better off that way.

Do they even advertise these updates anywhere, or do they expect people to randomly check the page every so often? I haven't seen any updates mentioned on FB or Twitter since the page first went up.

To be honest if it were not for this thread I wouldn't know The Astonishing web page existed.

Logging onto the official DT web page at present is very frustrating as I'm now getting the choose sides front page again not the tour one.
If you try logging onto DT Astonishingtour you get you are not permitted to access.

You would assume with the growing interest the web page would be working properly.

[King Postwhore]

It's kind of cool.  I'm from the old days without the internet.   The anticipation was greater and made the first listen even better.  I can't stop myself now listening to samples, songs ect...

[Train of Naught]

However, I'm getting this web adress when refreshing: https://www.dreamtheater.net/theastonishing#char3_LB

Character 3 being finished or something? I'm not a code expert.

[hefdaddy42]

[mikemangioy]

Hell yeah

[?]

I've been out of the loop for a while and just saw the latest update in the tracklist... Act I has 17 tracks?! Looks like the album will be similar to The Wall in terms of structure.

The deal with the NOMACs is a good excuse for Rudess to experience with some robotic dubsteish Bebot style noises, that could be fun if done right.

When I read "robotic" I immediately thought you were going to say Jordan should learn robot dance moves, and it reminded me of this video.

[RoeDent]

For previous albums, we've had a "What we know so far" thread. All known album info in one place, without having to wade through our endless (and usually incorrect) speculation.

[Train of Naught]

Thinking they'll announce the 3rd character today or tomorrow, maybe along with more tracks.

[RoeDent]

Thinking they'll announce the 3rd character today or tomorrow, maybe along with more tracks.

The last four updates have been on Mondays and Thursdays, so if they continue that, then the next update will be on Monday.

[YtseJamittaja]

Thinking they'll announce the 3rd character today or tomorrow, maybe along with more tracks.

3rd? I see only Emperor Nafaryus?

[dparrott]

this album had SO better not end on a cliffhanger !!!!!

Heh, watch it will and DT14 will be the finale!

[Train of Naught]

Thinking they'll announce the 3rd character today or tomorrow, maybe along with more tracks.

3rd? I see only Emperor Nafaryus?

Yeah phrased that a little weird, I meant the #3 character, as in, the one to the right of Nafaryus.

[Kotowboy]

I wonder why "places" is locked up even though we can see what it says...

[Enigmachine]

For previous albums, we've had a "What we know so far" thread. All known album info in one place, without having to wade through our endless (and usually incorrect) speculation.

Done. 

[YtseJamittaja]

I wonder why "places" is locked up even though we can see what it says...

Cause they wanna tease us.

[hefdaddy42]

I wonder why "places" is locked up even though we can see what it says...

We can't.  The section we can see is "Map" not "Places".  "Places" is locked, "Map" is not.

[ToT-147]

When they put out DT12, they mentioned wanting to have the album out for a few months before going on tour, so people could digest the new material. That was for a 69 min album, and they didn't even play the whole thing. Now, for a seemingly 100+ min massive concept album, they're going to start touring with the entire concept mere weeks (if that) after it's release date. I find that kind of ironic 

Well, it's going to be a theater performance, with hopefully clearer sound and all, making it easier to digest. People won't need to sing along there, and I guess it'll be more like a real presentation of the album instead of a usual live show.

Exactly, and besides that, it's not ironic with what JP said in almost every interview when he was asked for the AFtR tour: "... we want to make it one big Dream Theater experience. When you enter the venue, you're stepping into our world and we want to be able to transport people for a while. It might be a tall order, but that's our goal on this tour and that's why we're calling it 'Along for the Ride.' We want to take people with us."

Anyway, Evermind, about the ppl singing along, he also said this: "The cool thing about our fans is that they're not just passive concert goers. They're all really into it and are singing along to every song. They're the perfect audiences to play for, and we're excited to have more time to play and deliver an exciting, powerful show."

I think they're turning the page.. Now they want another thing, something this band has never explored before.. And this time they prefer to do it instead of speaking of it in advance..

[V_R11]

I wonder why "places" is locked up even though we can see what it says...

Cause they wanna tease us.

This whole thing is a major tease. DT must be having fun

[Kotowboy]

I wonder why "places" is locked up even though we can see what it says...

We can't.  The section we can see is "Map" not "Places".  "Places" is locked, "Map" is not.

Places is clearly legible under the padlock.

[hefdaddy42]

But you can't see the section.  Because it is locked.

[Kotowboy]

OH MY GOD

[Progmetty]

What I was wondering about is how the page https://www.dreamtheater.net/theastonishing, is not accessible from the main website, there's no link to it there. I know we guessed the url after we found out the album name from the live shows announcements but I'm wondering if we stumbled across that page earlier than they wanted us to since the main website is not linking to it.

[SwedishGoose]

What I was wondering about is how the page https://www.dreamtheater.net/theastonishing, is not accessible from the main website, there's no link to it there. I know we guessed the url after we found out the album name from the live shows announcements but I'm wondering if we stumbled across that page earlier than they wanted us to since the main website is not linking to it.

They linked to it from Facebook a couple of weeks ago...

[ResultsMayVary]

I'm pretty sure they've linked several times to it through posts on Facebook. I do remember it specifically when they confirmed the album title, for sure.

[ToT-147]

On November 5, in their fb's page: " The path is dividing: flyt.it/TheAstonishing "

[Darkstarshades]

Remember, remember, the fifth of November
The astonishing revealed, surprise
I know of no reason why the speculation season
Should ever make sense.

[Progmetty]

Oh ok I see it.

[hadi-persian]

from writing the elemans in spect element.the part of act l and act ll . the elements show to us the 10 part in espect element. before realising the 17 track in act l i active the espect elemnt that there was 17 empty part with 3 coloumn. and in act ll we have 10 part with 3 coloumn.guys pls scratch ur mind and dont tell about the DT's length of tracks. so w8 for listening to album.for u is very easy to get the see the live.but i'm live in iran.the country that the DT never come here.but it is not importanat.listening to album and see the DVD live is amazing! so dont tell a joke about dt and use from ur cheers days and new year!

[Kotowboy]

It's always clocks with you.