What Era Did You Start With?

[Zook]

I picked Octavarium because Score was 6 months old when I discovered them, and they were touring on that album in addition to the 20th anniversary. The 3 biggest topics I remember when I joined DT.net were Score, 10,000 Days, and Christ 0. Muse was another big one.

But if you mean which album did I start with, not what album was out when I became a fan, it was Images and Words, with my custom fade out of Pull Me Under because where I acquired it said the track was corrupted and cuts off at the end. True story.

[RoeDent]

A Dramatic Turn of Events was the first album I followed from the start

[romdrums]

Images and Words in August 1992. I was 14.

[James Mypetgiress]

My dad has been following DT since not long after WDADU. Apparently a radio station over here reviewed the album, or something to that effect. He got properly into them after I&W came out. So my entire life I've been listening to DT, but my first memory of becoming a proper fan was listening to Systematic Chaos just after it was released in '07. Fell in love and have never looked back.

[Nel]

My friend played the first half of Octavarium while we were on a road trip. Told me the band name, but not the name of the album. When we went back home, I went to the record store and asked for the newest Dream Theater album. That was Systematic Chaos. I loved it.

Spent the next year gathering most of the rest of the discography. I kind of listened to it all around the same time so my brain never separated the pre-2007 stuff into "eras". It was all just Dream Theater to me. The last two I needed were WDADU and Falling Into Infinity. Got them I think a month before Black Clouds was announced.

My parents got me this *apparent* tour poster when I was getting into the band from a garage sale. Don't know how legit this is considering they spelt theater the other way, but I see it as a funny souvenir from when I was getting into the band.

[cramx3]

Vote SC since that was the first new album since i became a fan, but the real answer is "score" as I had become a fan maybe 6 months before it's release.

[cfmoran13]

I&W era for me.  Shortly before Christmas break (1992) of my sophomore year of college, I stayed in for a Saturday night of drinking games with friends.  Headbanger's Ball was on in the background when the video for "Pull Me Under" came on.  The second the drums started, we all kinda paused to check out what video was on.  By the end of the song, my one buddy of mine and I were sitting there with our mouths agape, kinda like "What the fuck was that?!?"  I was home a week later and bought I&W on my own, not waiting for Christmas. 

Sadly, after going to 2 concerts in all of 1993, I'd have to wait for Awake before I saw them live.  But, then, in the next 14 months after Awake was released, I'd see them touring that album and ACOS and at one of their Home For The Holidays shows.  Those first few years were awesome!  I got to see them at least once every year up until 2001 when they didn't tour at all.

[tofee35]

It's interesting that as of this post only 13% of fans on the board came in during the Mangini era. That says alot about the quality & consistency of the band's output, but also the longevity of this forum. I was a SDOIT era fan.

-Tof

[The Letter M]

It's interesting that as of this post only 13% of fans on the board came in during the Mangini era. That says alot about the quality & consistency of the band's output, but also the longevity of this forum. I was a SDOIT era fan.

-Tof

But also, you have to consider, how many younger fans, who probably came on board in the last 10-12 years, are frequenting DT forums, or forums at all, and are probably only active on popular social media sites and apps? It'd be interesting to see the stats of the people who voted in this poll, with regards to age, both currently and when they became a fan.

-Marc.

[Orbert]

Good point.  DTF and discussion forums in general tend to be frequented more by older fans.  Younger fans (and thus those who generally came to DT later) are on Reddit or Discord or whatever TF it is that people use these days.

[The Letter M]

Good point.  DTF and discussion forums in general tend to be frequented more by older fans.  Younger fans (and thus those who generally came to DT later) are on Reddit or Discord or whatever TF it is that people use these days.

Precisely. I'm not saying there aren't any fans on here under 30, or within the Gen Z/Gen Alpha age-range, but they're probably a very small number of the fanbase here. It'd be neat to know if anyone born after 2000 became a fan of the band prior to MM joining (when they were younger than 10, that is), or if most of them didn't discover DT until their teenage years.

-Marc.

[PixelDream]

I misunderstood the poll question so I accidentally voted I&W, but that was the first album I started with.

That didn’t really click with me but somewhere around the year 2000 I picked up SFAM from the library. I was instantly hooked and thought it was the coolest music I had ever heard. I was 14.

[crystalstars17]

Precisely. I'm not saying there aren't any fans on here under 30, or within the Gen Z/Gen Alpha age-range, but they're probably a very small number of the fanbase here. It'd be neat to know if anyone born after 2000 became a fan of the band prior to MM joining (when they were younger than 10, that is), or if most of them didn't discover DT until their teenage years.

-Marc.

Xennial(s) (husband & I) here, my husband discovered them around 2010 and I was just late to the party (2016). But now you have me wondering whether my Gen Alpha nephew could be converted. He's a smart kid with an open mind about music, so I think it's possible. However I think most in that range prefer rap and pop now, especially in the US. But I also think that this type of music was always a niche thing that attracted a certain type of fan who is maybe a little more open-minded and a little more musically inclined than the general norm.

[Herrick]

I misunderstood the poll question so I accidentally voted I&W, but that was the first album I started with.

That didn’t really click with me but somewhere around the year 2000 I picked up SFAM from the library. I was instantly hooked and thought it was the coolest music I had ever heard. I was 14.

I think the poll question or at least the questions in the OP ask two different questions.

[Orbert]

Yeah, it's a little bit wonky.  Not every album is its own "era".  I think of eras as subsets of the catalogue, usually at least two or three albums.  Like I&W and Awake are from the same era, as they both had the same lineup and were before Kevin left.  The Sherinian era was short but had an EP, album, and their first "real" live album.  Then came Jordan and the "classic" era (for lack of a better term) which was a pretty stable lineup until MP left.  But some might subdivide that era if they feel like there were significant enough changes in their sound and/or approach.  The MM era is something of its own thing.

[obro]

My dad got the modern drummer 2003 festival dvd from a colleague, the end of the instrumedley performance is played, and hooked ever since!!
This was close to when Octavarium was released I think.

Man has it really been 20 years??