Some random thoughts on The Astonishing hype so far:
I've been listening repeatedly to ITPOE Pt. 1 and 2 since I read the news. I think we would be looking back on that song once this album comes out as something of a prototype idea.
I think this is not really a full JP project. For instance, LaBrie said in an interview once that he would be contributing lyrics to this album after he declined to write lyrics in the self-titled because he already spent a lot of creative energy for Impermanent Resonance.
Mangini's most recent post said "I'll be focusing most everything I do on this for a while: London, February 18th is the first night of the tour, and the worldwide premier of The Astonishing Live!" Given that it's November, it looks like Mike is involved in fixing and programming the click tracks for their sets. Back in September, he already posted this "There'll be a clinic or few popping up this fall between stuff I have to do to prepare for DT 2016" so he's been preparing way ahead of the tour.
And of course he posted this back in May:
"What have I been up to? Muaah ha ha ha ... it is a secret
But I am hitting a lot of drums, smiling more than anyone should be allowed and burning a lot of calories too."
I have also been thinking a bit (overthinking most likely) and I am trying to find a connection between the Dream Theater album and The Astonishing. I remember them saying that the Dream Theater album would mark the direction the band would be taking moving forward, and what I see is that it looks like they are now putting emphasis on THEATER in the Dream Theater name.
For the last album, they aimed for a cinematic feel (whether they achieved it or not is a matter of opinion). They have an intro music, a closing credits music, the songs are sequenced like a show (the DT12 songs are actually played in the album order in the last tour), and they have been repeatedly using the term cinematic in describing the album as a whole and individual songs like The Bigger Picture and Illumination Theory. The last tour has the most integrated musical and visual experience so far.
And now they are doing a rock opera.
And for my final random thought, would the next tour again not feature any Images and Words song in the set? Is Dream Theater really moving forward confident that they need not live under the shadow of their biggest success?