I'm really not sure how they expect James to possibly pull this off... No disrespect intended, but they need to seriously take his vocal limitations into account moving forward. As much as I love The Astonishing, when I saw them on this tour he was straining and struggling the whole way thru the show. It was painful. After the show I asked my girlfriend what she thought, and she said "the instrumentalists were amazing, but I couldn't understand a single word from the singer". And it's true, because when he's straining THAT much to hit the notes, his pronunciation and articulation goes out the window; vocals basically get reduced to nonsensical wailing at that point.
I really like The Astonishing, but I feel like they didn't really take into account how hard it would be for him to pull off those parts night after night on tour. It's one thing to do it in the studio, where you can do as many takes as you need, but an entirely different ball game live. So...not sure how on earth they think James will be able to pull this I&W tour off. It'll probably end up sounding like Wacken...and we all know how terrible that was.
Speaking of which, that reminds me - why the hell would you open up a show with Afterlife and Metropolis?! Those are two of the hardest songs to sing live, and it makes absolutely zero sense to expect James to pull them off right out of the gate. If anything, they should've been at the end of the show, after he's been able to warm up nicely. Like how did they not think of that? Surely James would've looked at that and said yeah, that's not a good idea. I feel like overall the band has made some really bizarre decisions post MP, many of which make no sense to me. Anyway, I think they could re-arrange some of the parts to make them more suitable for his current range. I'd much rather hear a slightly altered arrangement that sounds in tune than the *original* that sounds painful, and is embarrassing and drags down the rest of the band. But hey, what do I know.