It was 1998, I was a 14 year old and I was still trying to figure out several things in my life and giving shape to my personality. I live in a South American country, Colombia, a place were latin music is the norm and music diversity is scarce. Going through my adolescence I was trying to find out where to fit, and I did not feel that I fitted with the people around me.
I started to learn to play guitar and began to take a few steps towards what people here call "Metallica Music" (local people use the word ‘Metallica' not for the band but to refer to the whole Metal Genre). My next door neighbor was a drummer in a famous band from my town, and we used to talk from time to time. One day he passed by, and hearing me trying to play my guitar (and sucking at it), he went inside his house, came back and told me: "Hey, great that you like to rock, here, listen to these guys, they are really good" handing me a weird CD from a band I had never hear before (I did not know many bands back then, so this was hardly a surprise). The CD he gave me was When Dream and Day Unite, and as soon as I listened to YtseJam my whole life completely changed, back then I didn’t know how much that day would mean for me.
Dream Theater has been a huge part of my life since then. It is curious how even though I got to know DT when they were a huge a established act, I still heard to all of their albums in chronological order, and I loved all of them. I heard for countless hours When Dream and Day Unite, until months later, I finally could hunt their following album, and so on... it was quite difficult to find their music here in my country. On a short trip abroad, I bought I&W on an airport, and hearing Metropolis Pt1 was a complete revelation, I didn't know that a band could sound like that!! Months later a friend of a friend had Awake, and Erotomania blew my mind. Later on I got to hear ACOS on a casette tape, when a friend handed it to me telling: "They have a 25 minutes song!" my mind could barely process it, so naive back then, it was hard for me to imagine a single song lasting for so long. I chew all this material, until a friend who worked on a University, bump into a Falling into infinity CD in the lost and found box, and finally, after more than a year, one friend gave me a nice x-mas gift, the SFAM CD along with other album of a band I did not know, he told me that the guy in the music store suggested it when he bought SFAM, the album in question was Liquid Tension Experiment 2.
After finally catching up with them in 2000, I started to wait each couple of years for their new release, and they became part of my life,. The band shaped my view in many things and they are part to blame for the kind of man I am today. I improved my english trying to understand their lyrics and interviews, and thanks to how they put their influences all over their albums, they opened the doors and showed me other bands, some of them now among my favorites, like Pink Floyd (first time I heard of them being DT DSOTM cover), Rush, Yes, King Crimson... and the list goes on. Today I hear those bands and many more, all thanks to that neighbor and to those guys from NY that created the amazing music that fit perfectly in my heart and my mind.
Even though I have lived through different "musical phases" in my life, from the heavy metal obsession (Metallica, Maiden, Sabbath) to the classic rock overdose (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones), and of course the mighty prog rock, there has always been only one band that is always with me everywhere I go: Dream Theater. No matter my mood, the stage in which I am in my life, DT is always there, mixed with everything else. I do not want to pretend that DT is the "best" band in history (if such a thing exists), I know there are other band who are bigger, and legendary... But even though I greatly enjoy such legends as Queen, The Beatles, Metallica, AC/DC, ... There's only one favorite band for me, really close to my heart. To Mr. Petrucci, Mr. Myung, Mr. Labrie, Mr. Rudess, and Mr. Mangini... and to Mr. Moore, Mr. Portnoy, Mr. Sherininan, Mr. Dominici, Mr. Collins, and to all who in the last 30 years at some point contributed to build what DT is, there's no words to express how important it has been for me what you have done, the only words that come close are: I LOVE YOUR MUSIC, HAPPY 30th ANNIVERSARY, AND THANK YOU.
Topic: The band wants to hear from YOU: send a message to DT for their 30th anniversary (Read 145901 times)