I’m back, folks!
On Thursday night, I attended this, my 8th Dream Theater show... And it was quite possibly the best one I've ever been too. And my goodness, am I glad I decided to take a break from the forums and not look at any spoilers!
I just want to share my thoughts on the show... doubtful that anyone looking at this thread is trying particular hard to avoid
spoilers, but might as well warn about them anyway
Everything about the show was just spot on. The instrumentalists, the vocals, the lighting, the video show... even the song choices and the way the setlist was constructed was pretty much perfect for me.
Where to begin? Well, the beginning I guess. I was expecting to be pretty damn pumped when FAS came on over the speakers, but the way in which they presented it was something I didn’t see coming. An orchestral arrangement (or at least, without drums or guitars), and that opening projection was just about the most epic thing I’ve ever seen at a DT concert. I cannot express in words how excited I got to suddenly see the WDADU man brought to life on the screen, and how all the remaining album covers came to life and interconnected from there.
Unfortunately, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they were going to open with TEI. Talk about anti-climactic. I don’t hate the song, but it certainly doesn’t get me particularly excited in any way. Anyway, it doesn’t matter... things only continued to get more and more awesome from then on...
TSF was really fucking unexpected. Seriously, if you’d asked me to guess which song they would play second, considering their extensive back catalogue, this would have been among the last couple of songs I would have thought of. It came completely out of context, with none of the other twelve step songs preceding it, and without MP behind the drums. Something didn’t quite feel right about it... but I am glad that I got to see that song live.
OTBOA. Again, don’t really care for it. Moving on.
The Looking Glass came next. Up until this point, I’ve never been too crazy about the new album as a whole, but this is just one of those songs that really makes me appreciate the slightly different direction Dream Theater has been heading in. It sounded awesome and I had a great time singing along at the chorus.
Then... I pretty much died and went to heaven. Trial of Tears.
OH. MY. GOD!!
I cannot express in words how much I fucking love everything about this song. Especially in the last 6 months or so, I’ve just been going crazy for it and listening to it whenever the mood takes me. Of all the songs they could have picked, I was ecstatic when I heard those opening guitar notes and that little wood block roll!
Seriously, they could have ended the show after that song and I would have been happy that I got my money’s worth. But no, they continued to be fucking awesome and played EM with a new cartoon animation that as always, was delightful fun to watch. On the one hand, it seems a little strange to have something like that going on during such a complex and technical piece of music, as if taking attention away from the players, but it’s an incredibly creative way of keeping the audience involved and I appreciated it a lot. The drum solo didn’t go on too long, either. It was just right.
And, yeah. They closed the set with AFTR followed by BAI. Another song that I’m not crazy about, followed by one they played for the last time I came out to see them. Still, this is DT - even their “ok” songs are still pretty awesome...
How awesome it was of them to actually have something going on during the intermission. And it just goes to show how well these guys know their audience. I can pretty much guarantee that most people in the audience were familiar with some of or all of those videos, but to see them played back on a big screen, having been specially picked by the band was just unbelievably awesome. And the whole thing segued really nicely back into the action...
THE MIRROR. Oh my god... another song that I had always wanted to see live, yet had always eluded me up to this point. And they followed it up with Lie, of course. Two incredibly awesome songs I had always wanted to see live since the first time. But the awesomeness didn’t end there. The announcement that they were going to play a few more songs from Awake to celebrate it’s 20th anniversary, as well as give some attention to SFAM - wow, that really was the moment. I turned to my best mate who was with me and exchanged a knowing look, realising that this was going to a gig I would never forget.
From there on out, I guess it’s pretty much self-explanatory. But what was really freaky to me was how often it felt like the guys were reading my mind and figuring out which songs from the albums would make me the most happy. They played the entire second half of the Awake album, which I prefer massively over the first. Illumination Theory was incredibly powerful, as expected. Right before the encore, I discussed with my mate what songs we wanted them to encore with, and I said I would love Overture/Strange, and that’s exactly what they did. Only they didn’t stop there. They then launched into TDoE, which frankly I don’t think I could ever tire of seeing life. I was then hoping they would skip over OLT/TSCO and go into Finally Free, because a) they did exactly that in 2009 at this same venue, and b) TSCO has been played to death over the last few years. I didn’t think they actually would comply with my unspoken wish... but they did. And I got possibly the biggest chills of the evening towards the end of this last song. What a perfect ending to an incredible show.
I’d like to round things off with some very awesome numbers. Of the 18 songs they played, only 5 of them I had seen live prior to this gig. Of the remaining 13, only 6 of them were from the new album. And I’ve been to see DT 8 times now. All these statistics combine to make one incredibly awesome fact - these guys never cease to keep things fresh and exciting enough for me to want to keep coming back again and again.
“Awesome” tally: 10