But Finally Free has already been played by Mangini. BTW, I didn't like what he did at the end of the song.. Portnoy completely killed it at the end, it was HIS big moment of the Live Scenes album imho. Mangini just played some rhythmical variations and easy polyrhythms. Cmon MM you're better than that.
Did I miss the fact that the opener is a song never played by MM ?
Can bosk1 tell us if we are getting closer, or if we are completely out of it ?
I agree that MM did "ok" on that song.
He seems like a man with such humility and lack of confidence, so maybe he hesitates to do his own stuff on the songs...
For instance, listen to the Score version of Afterlife ; at the beginning, MP does some different stuff on the cymbals from how the songs has been written.
But during the 30th anniversary tour, MM did... nothing more than what's been written. I mean, c'mon this doesn't seem too hard to improvise a little bit.
Or maybe he is held back by the other members ? Dunno.