Good trip report.. You guys really should have sang "You can eat my ass and balls". I hope it's okay for me to post my own review of the day in more detail here.
It was a pretty nice day in Ohio as was mentioned. I work in Toledo, but live in BG. My roommate, who literally knows more about DT than any other band despite not caring for them )
), said she would go with me to a DT concert someday if I paid for the ticket. In August, Jordan tweeted about the M&G tickets, bought them the same day. She was not looking forward to having to meet them (she is somewhat shy and thought it was too expensive).
Fast forward to yesterday... I told her to meet me at my office at 3... For anyone who lives in the area, I work right beside where the Southwyck Mall used to be. Of course, she was running late, and by the time we got lunch at Subway, it was 3:45... Another 20 minutes of driving through Toledo construction and a detour through the ghetto, we are on the highway. She goes to sleep, I call my dad. As I'm about to hang up on my dad when we're getting into Detroit, she takes my GPS and says "you don't have to exit here". Or so I heard. She claims to have not said anything (bullshit)... I miss the exit, and the next exit when she tells me to stay left instead of exiting right. I take the GPS back, and we somehow make it to the venue just a few minutes before meet and greet people get to go in.
We go in to the meet and greet (which wasn't marked outside as we were told it would be on the itinerary), and wait. We had to make a single file line, and were told to move the line around like 3 different times before they were satisfied. The host reminded me of a reformed meth addict (sorry, but that's what I thought.. she was nice at least)... People in the meet and greet talked for a little bit. Then Dream Theater walks in like they own the place. I had the stupidest smile for the next hour. As I walked up to take the photo, JP looks at me and says "how's it going?" That's when I felt the earth move in my private place. I squeaked out a "what's up" or something similar.
We were told we could only have one thing signed. This was my dilemma... I had brought several things, and I wanted particular people to sign each thing, with JP and JR signing two things. I brought the BC guitar book, and a DT keyboard book, a lightswitch plate that my roommate made with ADToE cover on it (which is pretty sweet), and the new album. When they said one thing only, it sucked, because I had nothing that I wanted Mike only to sign. I sheepishly gave him my BC guitar book, and asked if he was willing to sign it. He smiled a huge Italian smile and said "Of course I'll sign it for you!"That was cool. JP signed my book, and asked me if I had learned the whole album yet. I said no not all of it, and he laughed a lot. LOLS. Jordan signed my keyboard book, John signed my book, and James signed my book. I told James how amazing I thought the new album was, and he said it "was the album they HAD to make." Very cool.
I bought nothing because I thought everything was too expensive... and we waited to go down to the floor. We got first row in between JP and James. I should mention that we bought earplugs, but did not bring them with us. Big mistake, as it was incredibly loud (duh). I talked with people on the floor, and generally was just pissing my pants waiting for JP to own the world with his guitar playing just a few feet in front of me. Trivium came on and I just couldn't believe how much I hated it. But that's another story.
So I'm standing there not loving the set, and the aforementioned CMB elbowed her way from the back to right beside me. I don't know how she got up there, but mylanta she was a thorn in my side. Literally like trying to sweep my legs out from under me and shoving me and shit, like she deserved to be there more than me. Everybody around me kept saying "I'm so sorry dude" every time I made eye contact with them. I finally called the security guy over, and he warned her, and she was slightly calmer then. She said something to me, and I looked at her, and said "You're a cunt". She didn't like that I don't think. After Trivium, she left. Everybody apologized again, and now everybody had breathing room. Anybody around me, I need to thank you for not getting too close during Dream Theater. After she left, there was plenty of room behind me, although I felt people touch my back a few times, it was a pretty nice atmosphere.
Now I wait for DT. No big deal. My favorite band of all time. I now had met them. I was in the first row. They were about to play a pretty cool set. This was my 7th time seeing them, but I had not been able to go since Gigantour. The stage was set. Cue Inception.
The intro video was cool, although I would have preferred a song. All the videos were pretty cool, but Outcry was by far the best (reminded me, in tone at least, of ItNoG). The Great Debate had the 2nd best video, and I don't have rankings for the others, because I didn't pay too much attention to them.
WUUUAHHHHWUUUUUUAHHHHH. Bridges in the titty sucking Sky. Oh hai, Mr. Petrucci. Why yes, that is a 7 string you are about to rip my face off with. Killer song live.
Bunch of other cool songs were played. Goddamn, if you've never had JP play guitar 2 feet in front of you, I would tell you that you need to arrange that. So much fucking power, I can't put it into words. JP debuted (at least to me), a new black and white guitar. I'm not big into the whole "look how cool that guitar is" type thing, but that guitar was beautiful. Black on the outside, white on the inside, with hundreds of black dots, almost like they took mesh and spray painted over it. My god, just amazingly cool.
Mike had his drum solo, and hit a bad cymbal, and his stick just sort of stayed there. He froze for about 1 sec, and smiled real big, grabbed another stick and put it in his mouth, and kept going. Pretty funny. My roommate, Jen, told me after that his drum solo was like a conversation. I forget, but she broke it down in a funny way. She enjoyed that a lot. Mike got a HUGE 2 minute ovation. He kept mouthing "thank you, thank you." He is now what makes DT tick. He is THE drummer for DT. He is the Genie. He can has cheeseburger. With a habanero, of course.
The rest of the set went by, it seemed, in a flash. DT is now like cemented into the groove together. INCREDIBLY solid performances. Unfortunately, this may have been the worst sounding show that I've seen, but I blame that on now having earplugs, the band played better than I've ever seen them. That is something I've said every time I have gone to see them though... Pretty amazing actually. Stone fucking solid. It was like they have Midi quantizations going on internally, where they can't ever be out of time. Sickest live band ever?
All in all, 9/10. Would be 10/10 if it wasn't for CMB or the fact that I forgot my earplugs. The set could have been better with BAI and CiaW, but it was pretty amazing. UaGM wasn't the best encore, but I prefer it over PMU (which I actually don't care for). I met some pretty cool people at the show, met DT, and had an overall killer experience. I'm not sure where I would rank it among other DT shows that I've been to... The first was obviously special to me, although I was only familiar with Scenes at the time. (It was 2002). The 2nd time, I was familiar with the whole catalogue, and was with a good friend and guitar playing buddy. 3rd time was general admission, and was right after ToT, amazing show. 4th time was seeing them open for Yes, and my mom was with me. 5th and 6th were Gigantour. 7th was yesterday. Probably 1st or 2nd best show overall. Outcry really was on another level live. People that are down on that song won't be after seeing it. There was something wrong during the syncopated unison riffage in the middle. I'm not sure if someone missed a beat, or JR had the wrong patch. JP kept looking over and you could tell something was wrong, but it was minor. After it was sorted out, the metal continued.
Thanks to everyone I met, and thanks to DT for a great night. I know I'll never forget being asked by JP if I had learned the whole album.
Topic: The Best Night of My Life (Read 7169 times)
