2016-04-23 - Radio City Music Hall - Manhattan, NY MEETUP & Concert Discussion

[El Barto]

I thought James sounded good both nights, but there's kind of an asterisk there. They're using a shit-ton of backing tracks and that includes much of the harder vocal parts. I understand having the orchestra and choir sequenced, and even background vocals. I won't hold that against them. They went well beyond that, though. There were times when JLB was singing background to canned leads.

That's interesting (particularly the emboldened part). I saw the show twice in London and don't recall thinking JLB was never singing the main line. (I do remember him sounding very poor in places, though.) Can you recall specific parts?

I don't have nearly enough familiarity with the songs to know exactly where it was (there was one part in particular that surprised me both nights). Moreover, videos of the performance are hard to come by on YT, so it'd be tough to track down. However, it was noticeable enough that others could probably point it out.

I do know that (at RCMH, at least) a great deal of the "oh shit, he just shanked my girlfriend" scream was canned.

I did check some videos from Europe where JLB sounded pretty terrible. It could also be the case that they revised the sequencing to help the guy out somewhere after those dates.

[nobloodyname]

Thanks for coming back on that. It's not important, really. I am certainly in the camp of thinking that all the main lines should be sung, though, and tape usage should be minimal. Wrong show for that, I think.

[El Barto]

Thanks for coming back on that. It's not important, really. I am certainly in the camp of thinking that all the main lines should be sung, though, and tape usage should be minimal. Wrong show for that, I think.

Yeah, like I say I understand the necessity given what they're trying to pull off. I just recall being surprised when there were multiple lines that he wasn't singing, aside from the backing vox. Most people here aren't exactly looking for flaws, so I can see how it might go unnoticed. Perhaps now that it's being discussed people will see where I'm referring to. Add to that, almost all of us are getting great seats now for these shows, making it a bit easier.

[pantsofeternity]

The only time I recall piped-in vocals raising a note of concern for me was on at least one chorus of "Moment of Betrayal."  I still think he was singing what would arguably be the lead vocal line -- the lower melody line as opposed to the high harmony part -- but it was the one time that it felt he was singing "along" rather than obviously singing lead with the canned vocals providing backup.

I recall being fairly impressed by him on the titular, climactic phrase of "Last Farewell" -- but maybe I was just hoodwinked.   Even so, I recall him holding the note long enough to overlap with the (obviously canned) scream in such a way that sure felt legit.

[Tick]

I think I might have liked the Wallingford Show a little more then the RCMH show. I felt like the mix wasn't anywhere near as good as the CT show, and there were a lot of times when James became inaudible.

My girlfriend missed pretty much the entire concert. She just got back from a 12 day Ireland trip the night before (the reason she was apprehensive to go in the first place) and she was really jet-lagged. She got about half way through The Gift of Music and was out cold until The Astonishing   

Wow, you went!
What did you pay for tickets? Better or worse seats?

[Chino]

I think I might have liked the Wallingford Show a little more then the RCMH show. I felt like the mix wasn't anywhere near as good as the CT show, and there were a lot of times when James became inaudible.

My girlfriend missed pretty much the entire concert. She just got back from a 12 day Ireland trip the night before (the reason she was apprehensive to go in the first place) and she was really jet-lagged. She got about half way through The Gift of Music and was out cold until The Astonishing   

Wow, you went!
What did you pay for tickets? Better or worse seats?

Yeah. We decided at 10:30am-ish to head down to the city. I paid $65 (per seat) for seats toward the back of the orchestra. I was probably about the same distance away as my Wallingford seats. There were seats further back in the orchestra going in the $40 range and there was a lot of stuff to the sides of the balconies in the $20-$30 range. I saw individual seats on Stubhub for as low as $8!

[Tick]

and not to be a jerk, but I was relieved to find out they didn't bring an orchestra. I was so pissed my wife gave her blessing for me to do score and I passed cause I said Oakdale was good enough. When the DVD came out I was so pissed I didn't go.
If that happened again, I would have been rippin cause she told me I could go solo if I wanted. Didn't want to spend money we don't really have to spend.

Now we wait and see if they do record a show at all and if so if its with or without an orchestra.

[cramx3]

I'd be fine without an orchestra, the presentation with the stage show was pretty awesome.

[dtvoices94]

I thought the show was incredible.  James and Jordan were great, Petrucci was god-like, and Myung and Mangini delivered as always.  The production was visually stunning.  I'm kicking myself for not going Friday night.  The only negative was the crowd...I heard someone yell Maiden and I swear I heard something about Metallica as well, but the where's Portnoy yell was idiotic.  That was completely disrespectful to Mangini (who played his a** off by the way) and I'm sure Portnoy would agree and would probably be embarrassed by the antics of a (I would hope) drunken moron.  Another gripe was that there needed to be a consensus on the stand/sit issue.  I don't care either way but it got pretty heated at times with people arguing during the show.

[El Barto]

I thought the show was incredible.  James and Jordan were great, Petrucci was god-like, and Myung and Mangini delivered as always.  The production was visually stunning.  I'm kicking myself for not going Friday night.  The only negative was the crowd...I heard someone yell Maiden and I swear I heard something about Metallica as well, but the where's Portnoy yell was idiotic.  That was completely disrespectful to Mangini (who played his a** off by the way) and I'm sure Portnoy would agree and would probably be embarrassed by the antics of a (I would hope) drunken moron. Another gripe was that there needed to be a consensus on the stand/sit issue.  I don't care either way but it got pretty heated at times with people arguing during the show.

In NYC? While nobody seemed to know what to do, I though everybody was well behaved about it. Wallingford was the complete opposite, though. I've never seen people so belligerently opposed to people standing at a show before. At RCMH I had no problem following the leads of others. The only exception was when I stood up for ANB outro solo because I knew what was coming, and I halfheartedly apologized to the guy behind me but told him he'd be well advised to stand up too.

[cramx3]

It definitely depends on where you are sitting as to whether you had problems or not with ushers or standers.  It seemed by me everyone stood and sat at the same time like we all knew to do it, no issues at all with that.  Sitting kind of sucked though, I wanted to rock out. 

[Tick]

It definitely depends on where you are sitting as to whether you had problems or not with ushers or standers.  It seemed by me everyone stood and sat at the same time like we all knew to do it, no issues at all with that.  Sitting kind of sucked though, I wanted to rock out.

Personally, I like to sit when its a seated show as opposed to an open floor DT show where I can actually move around instead of being in the middle of a row with no room. But I just go with the flow. People want to stand I'll stand. No problem.

[cramx3]

It definitely depends on where you are sitting as to whether you had problems or not with ushers or standers.  It seemed by me everyone stood and sat at the same time like we all knew to do it, no issues at all with that.  Sitting kind of sucked though, I wanted to rock out.

Personally, I like to sit when its a seated show as opposed to an open floor DT show where I can actually move around instead of being in the middle of a row with no room. But I just go with the flow. People want to stand I'll stand. No problem.

I just like rocking out, head banging, jumping, moving around with the music.  I think GA pits with seats in the back are the best of both worlds for rock concerts. 

[Prog Snob]

Yeah, I noticed the occasional piped in vocals, but I didn't ever think it was the main line.

Oh, and props to whoever it was that showed up to the meetup in a "Make Ravenskill Great Again" t shirt.

That was a great shirt. Might have been one of the twins.

Don't mention the twins... please.      When they started answering questions identically at the same time, I thought I was going to lose it. I still feel trapped in Wonderland.

[cramx3]

 

[CB]

The stunning visuals that were missing at most of the European shows.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9fjUHzbJ74

[cramx3]

Europe did not get the same stage show?

[CharlesPL]

Europe did not get the same stage show?

Same i think, i've seen them 3 times on this tour, but really i don't know (almost all the time i was watching the band :, except nomac tracks ofc) i prefer 1 LED.

[SystematicThought]

Those are definitely different. Here is A New Beginning in Italy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxNwg14LXs

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Holy crap, James was on fire. Finally, a good show for him!

[cramx3]

Those are definitely different. Here is A New Beginning in Italy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PxNwg14LXs

Looks like the screen weren't working  that's terrible as they added a lot to the show

[CB]

Europe did not get the same stage show?

We did, I think it was a technical problem they weren't able to solve during the European tour. I remember I've seen those chess visuals before, must have been at the first Amsterdam show. But I admit I can't really remember because I was watching the band most of the time. In later shows they were gone (got lost along the way...) But with the band rocking out and the light show it wasn't a big problem for me to see ANB without the visuals though the (suddenly) black screens felt a bit odd.

[brucknerdoc]

Fortunate coincidence...

Sitting next to me and my son on the floor at Radio City was a group of 3 woman (I know - seemed kinda weird to me, too...). In the first half, a drunk group of guys sitting behind us would not stop talking. One of the women turned and asked them to be quite but they persisted. I made the request more emphatically and they stayed quite for the remainder of the half.

At intermission, the woman thanked me for speaking up - then told me she was JR's wife, sitting with their daughter and a friend! Turns out Myung's family was further down the row.
After the show, she handed me and my son aftershow passes so we got to meet the band - including her telling Jordan the story, which got me a "thank you" and hug from JR 

Great show - great band - great family - awesome night!!! 

[cramx3]

Wow, awesome story!

[JustJen]

Fortunate coincidence...

Sitting next to me and my son on the floor at Radio City was a group of 3 woman (I know - seemed kinda weird to me, too...). In the first half, a drunk group of guys sitting behind us would not stop talking. One of the women turned and asked them to be quite but they persisted. I made the request more emphatically and they stayed quite for the remainder of the half.

At intermission, the woman thanked me for speaking up - then told me she was JR's wife, sitting with their daughter and a friend! Turns out Myung's family was further down the row.
After the show, she handed me and my son aftershow passes so we got to meet the band - including her telling Jordan the story, which got me a "thank you" and hug from JR 

Great show - great band - great family - awesome night!!! 

Outstanding!

[jsbru]

Question for people who had the meet n' greet...

Were they letting you bring stuff in to get signed?  Like a guitar?

[SystematicThought]

Europe did not get the same stage show?

Nice video by the way. It popped up on my Youtube feed

[yeshaberto]

Fortunate coincidence...

Sitting next to me and my son on the floor at Radio City was a group of 3 woman (I know - seemed kinda weird to me, too...). In the first half, a drunk group of guys sitting behind us would not stop talking. One of the women turned and asked them to be quite but they persisted. I made the request more emphatically and they stayed quite for the remainder of the half.

At intermission, the woman thanked me for speaking up - then told me she was JR's wife, sitting with their daughter and a friend! Turns out Myung's family was further down the row.
After the show, she handed me and my son aftershow passes so we got to meet the band - including her telling Jordan the story, which got me a "thank you" and hug from JR 

Great show - great band - great family - awesome night!!! 

Whoa! 
Love it!

[Mladen]

That's truly a fantastic story. 

[Prog Snob]

Fortunate coincidence...

Sitting next to me and my son on the floor at Radio City was a group of 3 woman (I know - seemed kinda weird to me, too...). In the first half, a drunk group of guys sitting behind us would not stop talking. One of the women turned and asked them to be quite but they persisted. I made the request more emphatically and they stayed quite for the remainder of the half.

At intermission, the woman thanked me for speaking up - then told me she was JR's wife, sitting with their daughter and a friend! Turns out Myung's family was further down the row.
After the show, she handed me and my son aftershow passes so we got to meet the band - including her telling Jordan the story, which got me a "thank you" and hug from JR 

Great show - great band - great family - awesome night!!! 

Awesome! 

[CrimsonSunrise]

Awesome story Bruck!  Kudos to you, that's what you call Karma    As far as sitting/standing, I sat only during orchestral passages for the most part.  Rest of the show I was pretty much standing.  I had a 20 year old kid behind me and it was his first concert EVER, and he was standing having a great time so I wasn't worried.  Plus, I'm short.  I had a girl in row 2 seat next to me, 40 something blonde...she was frikken rocking out the whole show and really knew the material!!  After the show I asked the young guy what he thought... you could just see the gleam in his eyes to go with the huge smile!  Barto, on that scream you're talking about, I really paid attention to it and from where I was sitting it sure seemed like the scream was about 75% live and 25% backing track... I was watching when he quit and the lower volumed backing continued for half a second or so.  =the live part had a lot of punch for sure!  Again, maybe it was my vantage point.  Overall sound to me was just awesome, one of the most well mixed shows I've heard. For sure it was the best mixed DT show, and it was like my  11th or so DT show.

[Tick]

Fortunate coincidence...

Sitting next to me and my son on the floor at Radio City was a group of 3 woman (I know - seemed kinda weird to me, too...). In the first half, a drunk group of guys sitting behind us would not stop talking. One of the women turned and asked them to be quite but they persisted. I made the request more emphatically and they stayed quite for the remainder of the half.

At intermission, the woman thanked me for speaking up - then told me she was JR's wife, sitting with their daughter and a friend! Turns out Myung's family was further down the row.
After the show, she handed me and my son aftershow passes so we got to meet the band - including her telling Jordan the story, which got me a "thank you" and hug from JR 

Great show - great band - great family - awesome night!!! 

Definitely cool! People who are rude like that need a good smack upside the head.
I sat next to MP's wife and kids in 09 in NYC and had a brief conversation with her. Very nice woman.

[Jinx]

The stunning visuals that were missing at most of the European shows.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9fjUHzbJ74

Incredible. On the first night in London there was no visuals at all for ANB. I thought that was a bit strange. The whole chess thing is a really good idea though

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

They were probably still working on them.

[Chino]

I think I remember reading that the computers crashed and they lost the visuals temporarily.