When he dropped The Great Debate on the ADTOE tour, at least he had the fall back of “ the fans want more of the new album” and kept both Outcry and BAI.
They dropped TGD to keep both "Outcry" and "Breaking All Illusions"? Man, that's rough, but if ADTOE wasn't as well received as it was, I'm sure there would've been a bigger outcry (pun intended) when they dropped TGD, which I think is a great song that doesn't get enough attention. I wonder if they'll ever play it again.
It's true Marc. Initially when they started doing the first full Dramatic shows (by that, I mean not the warm up shows they did in Europe), among the tracks that alternated were Outcry and BAI. For the first week or two, Outcry closed half the shows and BAI the other half, with TGD played at every show in the middle of the set. And then it was dropped, Outcry moved to the middle and BAI closed out all the shows from that point onward.
Interestingly, TGD was played during the warm up leg in Europe, so by the fact that JP decided to keep it in the set for the first run through North America suggests that it must've gotten at least a decent response in Europe. As for it returning to the setlist, I highly doubt it, given how JP seems fairly quick to drop songs from the set that don't get a good audience reaction. Maybe in Europe, but not in North America, and considering that they don't seem to be changing the setlist between tour legs, I don't see it coming back at all.