Mike Portnoy has a new Dream Theater cover band

[MirrorMask]

The man speaks on FB.

"Very excited to see all of the great feedback upon the announcement of my Shattered Fortress appearance at Prog Power 2017!

To answer a few questions I've been seeing:

• This is not "a new band or project", it is "an EVENT" that will be making several select live appearances in select markets throughout 2017

• The lineup of musicians joining me for these shows will not be announced prior to our live debut at my 50th Birthday Concert on Cruise To The Edge...
I want that to remain a surprise until our unveiling

• The setlist at these shows will be comprised of the 12 Step Suite and (time permitting at certain shows) other Dream Theater songs that I've written the lyrics to

Keep in mind, I have no plans (or interest) in revisiting DT material in any of my other "real" bands...this is not an ongoing "project" or career move...this is merely a unique event that I am doing in select markets in 2017 to share with fans around the world...so catch it while you can!!"

Well, this makes it way clear.

[mikeyd23]

Keep in mind, I have no plans (or interest) in revisiting DT material in any of my other "real" bands...this is not an ongoing "project" or career move...this is merely a unique event that I am doing in select markets in 2017 to share with fans around the world...so catch it while you can!!"

That's cool, I was hoping this wouldn't turn into a project he toured with, glad to hear he's having fun with this and treating it as an event that'll happen maybe a few times.

[bosk1]

I would have assumed that none of that would have needed explaining.  Kind of sad that it apparently did.

Now, what we should be doing is speculating about the set list. 

[Mosh]

Cool. I suppose A Change of Seasons is a strong possibility, maybe The Best of Times?

[MirrorMask]

Yup, those would be my first two guesses. Also The Mirror and Constant Motion could be in...

[Art]

Honor Thy Father?

[Adami]

Cool. I suppose A Change of Seasons is a strong possibility, maybe The Best of Times?

I can't imagine "time permitting" and acos go hand in hand.

[Mosh]

I remember reading somewhere that Portnoy reconciled with his step father (subject of HTF) and doesn't connect with those lyrics anymore. With that in mind, I can't see him playing it.

[Setlist Scotty]

I'd go with ACoS and maybe TBoT.

Honor Thy Father?

Highly doubtful given the fact that he's patched things up with his stepfather (the inspiration for the song). You'll notice that it wasn't in any of the setlists after summer of 2007, and I'm almost 100% certain that's the reason why. In fact, I remember seeing his stepfather leaving the dressing room after the 2007 Jones Beach show - had there still been bad blood between them, I can't imagine that would've happened.

[Art]

I didn´t know about him patching up with his stepfather. While it´s a good thing for him, i like the song and would love it to be on the set. 

[JayOctavarium]

Depending  on the lineup,  this could turn out pretty bad ass.  I don't wanna say I want this to go on tour (if it lives up to hype),  but I'd love a chance to see  this. 

[TheCountOfNYC]

A Change of Seasons, The Best of Times, and Home would be the three songs that I hope they play. I would expect The Mirror, Burning My Soul, and Constant Motion. Maybe New Millennium and War Inside My Head/The Test That Stumped Them All. I'm guessing no Honor Thy Father or Never Enough and I'm also gonna say songs that he partially wrote the lyrics to are out as well so no Take the Time, Octavarium, or A Rite of Passage. Everything else I'm not sure about. One question though: what's the possibility that they play an instrumental?

[ChuckSteak]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

[Kotowboy]

Depending  on the lineup,  this could turn out pretty bad ass.  I don't wanna say I want this to go on tour (if it lives up to hype),  but I'd love a chance to see  this.

Don't worry there will be a double Blu Ray package for $25

[Kotowboy]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

Oh For Fucks Sake

NOTHING about this says " I'm over DT " like he keeps claiming.

[bosk1]

I'm also gonna say songs that he partially wrote the lyrics to are out as well so no Take the Time, Octavarium, or A Rite of Passage.

Why do you think so?  As soon as I saw his post, the first thing I thought was, "I bet he might throw Take The Time in there."

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

Well, of course it was only a matter of time before he failed to restrain himself from making dumb passive aggressive comments about his former band.  Sadly, that's a given nowadays.

[WheyWaffles]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

I'm not on Facebook, but am guessing this was a direct response to a fan? If so, I really have no problem with this particular statement despite the fact that half of my posts in this thread (and probably in other threads) are more or less at Mike's expense. Pretty benign stuff unless it came out of nowhere and not as a reply to a direct inquiry.

[Kotowboy]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

Was this out of the blue - or was it in reply to a fan ?

[bosk1]

Even if it was in response to a fan, there is no need for "I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in..."  Once again, poor form.

[ChuckSteak]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

Was this out of the blue - or was it in reply to a fan ?

"Marc Walsh MY FUCKING GOD!

I have been waiting for and anticipating this moment since the suite was completed!
Like · Reply · 36 · 2 hrs

Mike Portnoy
Mike Portnoy So have I! : )
Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!
Like · Reply · 275 · 2 hrs"


I don't see anything wrong with what MP said though. He's just stating facts. The DT guys have no interest in a reunion.

[Kotowboy]

Appropriate 

[WheyWaffles]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

Was this out of the blue - or was it in reply to a fan ?

"Marc Walsh MY FUCKING GOD!

I have been waiting for and anticipating this moment since the suite was completed!
Like · Reply · 36 · 2 hrs

Mike Portnoy
Mike Portnoy So have I! : )
Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!
Like · Reply · 275 · 2 hrs"


I don't see anything wrong with what MP said though. He's just stating facts. The DT guys have no interest in a reunion.

The context changes my opinion on this... The fan didn't bring up DT, Mike did. I was naive to give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Enigmachine]

• This is not "a new band or project", it is "an EVENT" that will be making several select live appearances in select markets throughout 2017

Ok then, so it's a completely wasted oppurtunity to create some healthy creative competition with his former bandmates (IMO at least).

Appropriate 

Definitely. I do sometimes feel a bit sorry for MP though. DT was a strong and secure place to be that requires a ton of time and dedication and MP clearly got burned out on that due to having around 3 side projects at the same time. He never really had a place with as much creative control or as much impact as DT. I think I can forgive him for the occasional leaking of bitterness for that. Having said that, I haven't really listened to some of his side projects like Flying Colors, Transatlantic, Neal Morse Solo/Band, Winery Dogs (BTW, can someone tell me how those acts compare to the DT of the last decade, quality and style wise?).

[Mosh]

I'm also gonna say songs that he partially wrote the lyrics to are out as well so no Take the Time, Octavarium, or A Rite of Passage.

Why do you think so?  As soon as I saw his post, the first thing I thought was, "I bet he might throw Take The Time in there."

Well MP loves medleys, I think it's more likely that he includes his part of Take the Time in some sort of medley. This is supposed to be a career spanning thing, so maybe he does a big medley of the major projects he's been involved with.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but I can't wait around for a reunion that they seem to have no interest in...
Life is short, Carpe Diem!"

MP on Facebook

I'm not on Facebook, but am guessing this was a direct response to a fan? If so, I really have no problem with this particular statement despite the fact that half of my posts in this thread (and probably in other threads) are more or less at Mike's expense. Pretty benign stuff unless it came out of nowhere and not as a reply to a direct inquiry.

It's not what he says, it's HOW he says it. He could've easily avoided mentioning DT has no interest in a reunion, but he just can't resist. His response could've been something like:
"Of course, I would've liked to have done it w DT, but this is gonna kick ass nevertheless!"

That would've made a big, big difference in how his message is perceived. The thing is he's never gonna stop taking passive aggressive poke shots against DT because that makes his diehard fans go all like: YOU'RE THE BEST MP! YOU DON'T NEED DT! THEY SUCK NOW LOL THE ASLOLNISHING INDONESIA SOON; and because his approach is to be transparent and sincere in his social media. Well, his way of behaving in social media isn't the best and most of the criticism he has gotten in the past few years comes mostly from his online persona (and I don think that's very debatable). When have you read or heard JP or JR mention Mike Portnoy in their posts/interviews? Aside from the usual 'MP was amazing, but now we have MM who is amazing as well'. He could learn a thing or two from them.

[Mosh]

It's disappointing that he brought it up without being prompted. Most of the time you can at least say that he's not the one who is bringing up DT, it's fans/interviewers. This time that isn't the case.

[rumborak]

Regarding the 12 step suite, I would love if he "reduxed" the thing to make it more concise. I once listened to it in regular form, and I felt there was too much revisiting going on. That was of course fine and necessary when the songs came out and people were "reminded" of the previous albums' songs, but when you just heard the thing a few minutes ago, this "Last time on Star Trek The Next Generation..." thing became distracting.

[Adami]

Regarding the 12 step suite, I would love if he "reduxed" the thing to make it more concise. I once listened to it in regular form, and I felt there was too much revisiting going on. That was of course fine and necessary when the songs came out and people were "reminded" of the previous albums' songs, but when you just heard the thing a few minutes ago, this "Last time on Star Trek The Next Generation..." thing became distracting.

How about if, every time they repeated a riff, MP would growl "LAST TIME ON STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION!!! RAWRRR!!!"?

I'd be down for that.

[Mosh]

I was thinking along the same lines, that the whole thing should be condensed a bit. My main beef with the 12 Step Suite is that The Root Of All Evil is totally out of place in context. They were clever with the key changes and slowly bringing it back to the home key by The Shattered Fortress, but the actual song itself just makes the whole thing feel a bit disjointed. It would've been better as a 4 parter IMO.

That being said, he should perform it as it was originally written at least once. Unfortunately this isn't the sort of thing you can make adjustments to over time after repeated live performances.

[Weymolith]

I fail to see how this is a "Cover Band."

He's performing songs he wrote and recorded.

It's not any different than Roger Waters performing The Wall, or any other of his songs he wrote with Pink Floyd. That's not a "cover band."

Bob Weir and Phil Lesh performing songs they wrote and performed with The Grateful Dead in Ratdog, Scaring The Children, or any other of their side projects aren't considered "cover bands."

I think calling it a cover band is nothing but an insult.

Then again, that's just my opinion.

Of course, half of you will just say I'm standing up for MP because I worked for him for so long.
Not the case.

[shredd]

Definitely. I do sometimes feel a bit sorry for MP though. DT was a strong and secure place to be that requires a ton of time and dedication and MP clearly got burned out on that due to having around 3 side projects at the same time. He never really had a place with as much creative control or as much impact as DT. I think I can forgive him for the occasional leaking of bitterness for that. Having said that, I haven't really listened to some of his side projects like Flying Colors, Transatlantic, Neal Morse Solo/Band, Winery Dogs (BTW, can someone tell me how those acts compare to the DT of the last decade, quality and style wise?).

In my opinion, most of them are more or less on par with DT of the last decade quality-wise, but the drum mix is much better on all of them than the last 3 DT albums.

Transatlantic is the project I consider truly on par with DT and in terms of style is the most similar. There is just less metal than DT, but they still get quite heavy at times.

The Winery Dogs would be my next favourite. That second album is fire from beginning to end. Style-wise they can still be considered progressive rock but much less experimental. No long instrumental sections here. Think more accessible prog. probably a good starting place for people new to the genre.

Neal Morse band is also awesome and arrangement-wise can be quite similar to Transatlantic, which isn't surprising since both bands share MP and Neal. Still proggy but less so from what I've heard. Although the Long Day/Overture track they just released from the upcoming album 'Similitude of a Dream' sounds absolutely stunning and reminds me of Octavarium so far from a production and arrangement/compositional perspective.

As far as Neal Morse's solo stuff that Mike has played on I can't really discuss coz I've only heard a couple of songs, sorry.

Metal Allegiance is self explanatory once you've heard one song. It's straight up metal. Nothing like DT at all. Still enjoyable at times though if you just want to rock along.

I haven't really delved deep into Flying Colors or Adrenaline Mob but that's mainly because when I tried I didn't really enjoy what I heard, so make of that what you will based on what I've said about the rest.
Quality seems pretty good though and in terms of style Flying Colors is almost soft/mainstream rock whilst Adrenaline Mob is well, more just metal and probably is the least quality of them all from what I've listened to.

[MirrorMask]

About the suite, I don't think that The Root of All Evil is out of place, if at all I agree that once you hear it in a row the "oh, cool, I remember this refrain" that happened every 2 years with each new album is not so great.

What I'm curious is how the Repentence > Shattered Fortress transition will go. The other ones are pretty obvious; Glass Prison / Dying soul we've heard it live, Dying Soul will go straight into Root of All Evil when you cut out the whole intro of the latter, and the end of Root flows nicely into the beginning of Repentance, but how Mike intended the last transition to work?

Live you can't obviously do the fade-in, so what would happen after "The truth is the truth and all you can do is to learn to live with it"? Shattered Fortress starts the way DT performed it live with the whole intro? when I did my own mix of the suite I skipped alltogether the whole 2 minute intro and went straight into the beginning of the fast part, it's a nice punch coming in after the very end of Repentance.

[Enigmachine]

Definitely. I do sometimes feel a bit sorry for MP though. DT was a strong and secure place to be that requires a ton of time and dedication and MP clearly got burned out on that due to having around 3 side projects at the same time. He never really had a place with as much creative control or as much impact as DT. I think I can forgive him for the occasional leaking of bitterness for that. Having said that, I haven't really listened to some of his side projects like Flying Colors, Transatlantic, Neal Morse Solo/Band, Winery Dogs (BTW, can someone tell me how those acts compare to the DT of the last decade, quality and style wise?).

In my opinion, most of them are more or less on par with DT of the last decade quality-wise, but the drum mix is much better on all of them than the last 3 DT albums.

Transatlantic is the project I consider truly on par with DT and in terms of style is the most similar. There is just less metal than DT, but they still get quite heavy at times.

The Winery Dogs would be my next favourite. That second album is fire from beginning to end. Style-wise they can still be considered progressive rock but much less experimental. No long instrumental sections here. Think more accessible prog. probably a good starting place for people new to the genre.

Neal Morse band is also awesome and arrangement-wise can be quite similar to Transatlantic, which isn't surprising since both bands share MP and Neal. Still proggy but less so from what I've heard. Although the Long Day/Overture track they just released from the upcoming album 'Similitude of a Dream' sounds absolutely stunning and reminds me of Octavarium so far from a production and arrangement/compositional perspective.

As far as Neal Morse's solo stuff that Mike has played on I can't really discuss coz I've only heard a couple of songs, sorry.

Metal Allegiance is self explanatory once you've heard one song. It's straight up metal. Nothing like DT at all. Still enjoyable at times though if you just want to rock along.

I haven't really delved deep into Flying Colors or Adrenaline Mob but that's mainly because when I tried I didn't really enjoy what I heard, so make of that what you will based on what I've said about the rest.
Quality seems pretty good though and in terms of style Flying Colors is almost soft/mainstream rock whilst Adrenaline Mob is well, more just metal and probably is the least quality of them all from what I've listened to.

Cool. Thanks.

[Prog Snob]

I fail to see how this is a "Cover Band."

He's performing songs he wrote and recorded.

It's not any different than Roger Waters performing The Wall, or any other of his songs he wrote with Pink Floyd. That's not a "cover band."

Bob Weir and Phil Lesh performing songs they wrote and performed with The Grateful Dead in Ratdog, Scaring The Children, or any other of their side projects aren't considered "cover bands."

I think calling it a cover band is nothing but an insult.

Then again, that's just my opinion.

Of course, half of you will just say I'm standing up for MP because I worked for him for so long.
Not the case.

You know, I saw the OP and it didn't even hit me that MP would never have called it a cover band.

[nikatapi]

I fail to see how this is a "Cover Band."

He's performing songs he wrote the lyrics for and recorded.

It's not any different than Roger Waters performing The Wall, or any other of his songs he wrote with Pink Floyd. That's not a "cover band."

Fixed that for me. But it is a cover band, even if Mike was crucial to this whole suite of songs. And it's not the same with Roger Waters because he also wrote music, not only lyrics and arrangements.