My older brother had a friend whose cousin would travel a lot to the US, and he would always bring new music with him (I'm talking about
cassettes, by the way, circa 1994). So once he brought this funny looking, strange but very attractive one with someone like a greek guy on the cover, a big mirror, and a clock-shaped moon. My brother started listening to it (I was 9, he was 13) and I think something happened in my brain and I was unable to stop listening to it. He did a copy of it for me, and I would take it to school on my
personal stereo to share it with my mates, but they were into really shitty music so it never caught up. My 2 favorites songs by then were 6 o' Clock and, by far, WAY FAR, Caught in a Web.
My brother's friend's cousin would bring Images and Words afterwards, and then my brother got Falling into Infinity for Christmas 97 on CD, and I got A Change of Seasons on a cassette. I was so thrilled, I remember that moment as it'd been yesterday.
Then, by 1999, I'd saved some money as I was looking forward to a new album (unfortunately it was very difficult to know when they would launch another one since we didn't have access to Internet back then, and it wasn't really popular around). I went with a friend of mine to a music store called BlackBox and I found a lot of music, but no DT. I asked they guy in charge, and he said the new album was coming in a few weeks. So I waited and eventually bought my first DT CD: SFAM. I can't recall if it was later that same year or the next when I bought the Live Scenes in New York VHS (it must have been in 2001, duh), to which I created a topic a few months ago as I still have it
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=47499.msg2175174#msg2175174Then, in 2005, DT finally came to Chile, South America, in the Octavarium Tour, and I was able to see them live for the first time. I was 20 years old, and I went with my brother, his friend and cousin, and a friend of mine. I remember the band was really excited as it was the first time they were in Chile, and the audience was something over 20.000
That was a damn good show.
I actually remember someone jumped over the stage at the beginning of Under a Glass Moon, and LaBrie went "this guy's excited here"
This is the exact part:
https://youtu.be/M81CHCBcwqs?t=1276 Anyways, that's pretty much how I got into DT 23 years ago.