What can I say? Except that like many in this thread, the email hit me in the middle of my workday and my first thought was Wait, it IS October, right?! I literally thought it was April fools. I also couldn't wait to pass it along to my husband, whom I knew would be overjoyed.
So after almost 48 hours of processing - and the necessary time it took to catch up on this gargantuan thread amidst the responsibilities of real life before the obligatory chiming in on such a huge bit of news - it seems surreal, like I've walked into an alternate reality.
POV:
Compared with the majority here, I am a fairly recent fan. The Astonishing was brand new when I discovered DT. Yet my first exposure to their music was Score. More specifically, Octavarium from Score. I remember standing suspended in zero gravity while Jordan Rudess played the intro, instantly transported to some distant tranquil place among the outermost stars (it's where my username comes from, where does the music lead me..? out among the crystal stars... but I digress). I've been a fan since that moment, no looking back.
Now back to the present: I have mixed feelings regarding the news. I am both happy and sad. It's a new beginning, but also the end of an era - the era in which I became a fan. Conversation with my husband has gone something like him saying "What are you afraid of?" and then to him seeing a very apt analogy: "I get it, it's like those Star Wars fans who are either all about the original trilogy, or the prequels". That's exactly it. I am essentially a "prequels" DT fan, as it were. My fandom was born in the Mangini era. "But, it's ALL good!", he went on to say, to which I mightily agreed.
So why the mixed feelings, what am I afraid of?
I guess I'm worried about power struggles within the band. I worry that the era of the recent years, with its beautiful writing (I absolutely love AVFTTOTW) would be over. That the wings of the JR/JP writing era would be clipped. That they will never play the songs from the recent albums live ever again. 😓
I guess I hate change... 😪
But I see the positives, too. So forgive the early morning incoherent ramblings of a burnt-out fan who has had recently too much stress, too much work, and way too little sleep.
I watched Score last night, and told myself, "It's all gonna be alright...".