I do wish the band would change up the setlist. But also, being one that hardly ever sees the band, and I never really got to see them much with MP, I understand why they don't. I did not get to see many of the songs on the setlist this tour before. Even though I've watched Live at Luna Park and the other live dvds, it's an entirely different experience actually being there at the show and hearing these songs.
Being that the songs I enjoy most from some bands tend to be ones they rarely play live, it does not matter to me what songs a band plays live. Most of these songs were only played for that certain tour, and only played one tour with MM. I do not mind one bit that they played these songs again. I saw it twice because this setlist was about as close to a dream set-list the band could have done with this amount of set-time. I did not expect them to go full on epic mode either by the majority of the set being songs close to 10 min. in length.
Some of us are very fortunate to witness the band more than once, but also there are many whose first time is that very show which is your 5th show of the tour.
With the production utilizing some fantastic graphic animation, it takes time to make these videos and having various amount of songs to switch around can become a bit of a hassle. The backing videos weren't that well produced either when Portnoy was in the band, it was more like Windows Visuals type of video mixed with live shots of the band. This tour, it's entirely a video production, and it works well with the surrounding album cover art and the light show. I think it's amazing and is showcased by how much the band downsized their gear, especially Mangini with his downsized drum-kit (Although I understand there could be other reasons for him downsizing the kit).
I do also think it is possible to have worked in some more video animation in this downtime, so that they can change up the set with some different songs.
Also, the video production is one reason why I think the band doesn't improvise much, or add in extra solos and that type of stuff. I say this because of how much the band improvised during the I&W&B tour, and they did not have a video screen at all, which gave them a sort of freedom by not being bound to staying in sync with the video production.
It's funny, I often have a similar reaction to songs where I'm like, "Oh, their playing that again? Haven't we heard it enough recently?" And then I actually go and check and realize it has been a lot more years than I thought. DT is just that band now where they have been around for so long that they've played just about everything a lot now.
That is true, but with such a massive catalog at this point, there's plenty to pick from that hasn't been played with MM yet. For one, I was really surprised that they haven't played Erotomania yet. Would have been perfect for this tour: representing Awake, hasn't been played with MM yet, is an instrumental to give JL (who has been struggling more) a break. Makes much more sense than playing 6:00 again. And they could've played something else from ADToE than BitS, not only because of the miming fiasco, but also because that song was played consistently throughout the whole Dramatic tour (aside from the summer warmup leg) and was included on the 2015 mini-tour, such as LNF or TitL which were both added late in the tour.
Reminds me of what Geddy Lee said on R30, "We have way too much music to play" and I feel Dream Theater has hit this point where they have so much music they can play now that certain songs won't be played as much anymore.
Topic: Top Of The World Tour 2023 (Read 69758 times)
