The MM vs. MM debate is intense. I have sort of dropped the my preconceived belief that Mangini is the one, just so it adds suspense. It seems interesting how the band is kind of split on these two. LaBrie seems to be really impressed with Minnemann, Petrucci seems to still be keen on Mangini, and it is too hard to tell with Rudess/Myung.
I see it as JP being all over Mangini, possibly backed by JM, with Rudess and LaBrie liking Marco.
This audition process has given me a lot more respect for DT and for MP. I mean...wow, only two drummers out of five didn't blow it at at least one point. I am not saying they are bad drummers, but I think it speaks volumes of DT's musicality.
True, although even DT themselves screw up something now and then. I mean, what set of auditions, no matter the talent pool, has seen absolutely everyone nail everything? Obviously DT is great, and Portnoy was a great drummer, but I wouldn't underestimate the abilities of these auditionees, to be sure.
Also, one thing was interesting that I picked up on. For most of the auditions, the process is Songs --> Jam --> Riffs, but it seems mixed up for a lot of them. For example, Donati said that they did the riffs after the songs.
It looks like the band shifted the jamming to first starting on Day 2. JP mentioned the great jam with Lang that happened immediately, and they probably liked that and stuck with it. Makes sense--jamming is a nice de-stresser and warmup for the candidates before attacking the songs and the riffs.
And did you guys notice how Roddy was the only guy they didn't show a sit-down chat with? I wonder if they even gave it to him, or if they knew right off the bat that he wasn't the one.
Not only that, they shake hands with him behind the kit. And they never say "You've passed the riff test." It looks like they were pretty sure he was out fairly quickly. The doc really makes Roddy look bad though, thanks to the camera mic audio. You can't even hear the band, and it's just a ton of crash cymbals all the way through. It sucks for him that they had that glitch, although honestly, it's better for that to happen to the last-place candidate than the first. Imagine if Mangini's audio was screwed up--the guys who didn't like him before wouldn't have been swayed at all.