Hi, new member here.
I was at the show at the Carre Theater on monday and just wanted to share some thoughts. I'm from Germany, I apologize for any weird English
The music sounded MUCH more rock/metal than on the CD. Very fitting for the live show imo. The audience could have been more engaged but it's probably because of the venue that most people reacted like an opera audience rather than a crowd watching a rock concert. It was funny to see that almost nobody dared to stand up during the "encore", but then after the last note the audience jumped up at once for a well deserved standing ovation
The visuals worked much better than I expected, they created a great "moving" effect (at some parts MM seemed to fly across the stage on his drumset) and there were some stunning moments on the screens. The Lightshow was very impressive too. Visually the best DT show for me so far.
I was sitting in the balcony in the middle with professional ear protection, therefore I had not problems with the sound. It was well balanced and clear, I could hear every member of the band. Without the ear protection though - I tried it - everything was much too loud and sounded less good. I'll never understand why concerts have to be so loud that the quality suffers from it and the audience risks damaging their ears!
The band played extremely well. Mike especially was a joy to hear and to watch, he was totally into it, looked like he had a lot of fun, big smile on his face.
I'm surprised by the criticism of James performance here. After the show I heard people comment that his voice had been "very, very good", "better than ever", that he sang flawless etc. I think he was great that evening, I never heard his voice so powerful. The YouTube clips don't do him justice. If he made a few mistakes they were so small that I forgot them instantly. The interpretation of the different characters was fantastic, I didn't expect that he would be able to do that live in such a stellar way. I think he lowered some (very few) notes, to protect his voice I guess, but it sounded intentional to me and not off key and he also belted out enough high notes. I remember a few "screamy" parts as well, but that might have been interpretation of the roles, it was fitting the scenens ("Do as my father says" was one of them).
BTW, he's "James LaBriest" in the tour program
The lack of a real encore didn't bother me. The show was very fulfilling and I can't think of a song that would have sounded right after the end of TA. It was such a monumental experience.
I'm glad I made the trip to Amsterdam, despite the bad weather. The only thing I regret is that I didn't run into any band members, my hotel was just 5 seconds away from Carre.
I hope I'll be able to watch the show again (Hannover) and I think it totally deserves to be captured on DVD.