MP said himself in Facebook the entire show will be with the orchestra, so I guess it’s the correct information.
While DT didn’t make a DVD from a single TA show, MP is still doing one of the things he’s always did best when he was in DT...
How is MP releasing a live album from almost every studio thing he's done in the past few years related to DT not releasing an Astonishing DVD release? DT released massive concerts from both the ADTOE and DT tour cycles (even one of them got a cinema treatment!) and they were great. I sometimes miss Portnoy's spark for extra material in DT (although I do not miss forced releases like Chaos in Motion), but I don't see why MP advocates (not implying that you are, just throwing this in as a general observation), are the first ones in trying to separate MP from his DT-related endeavours and yet are the first to pick on the things that DT's 'not doing right' and MP's 'doing right', whatever that is.
Of course the SoA DVD (or should we start calling them Blu-Rays? lol) sounds like a nice idea and something definitely worth checking out, but I think I understand why some people are picking on this decision. I mean, if I were Derek or Portnoy, doesn't matter how cocky I am regarding the image of my band (and oh God they're cocky), I would not let pass a chance to play live with an orchestra (if I got the chance of doing that myself at some point I would go so crazy), but it seems as a weird-ish course of action for a band that:
1) Has been 'officially' on the radar for just a couple of months
2) Has in it a member who has virtually criticized a certain CheeseWiz and CheeseWizBand and now is doing the same exact things the CheeseWizBand has done for the past decade or so.
3) Is filling up a set with covers for lack of original material (not saying this is a bad thing, but I certainly know what to expect of Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy doing covers by this point).
Don't mean to sound like I'm picking on the band, they're free to do as they please and I certainly will check that concert out at some point and even buy it if the material is good, but boy I get what some people say. Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but all the shit that's been boiling around these guys for the past few months has diminished my interest on this band and all its endeavours. Am I not being objective? I dunno, but I think some folks around here feel the same way I do.
On a more positive note, Opus Maximus is probably going to sound epic.