Wow - we should just stay home and listen to bootlegs from 1993?
Setting aside the (unintentional???) dig at 'people like me,'
It looks as if I need to clear the air a bit here (and sorry so late in doing so, real life and all that). It appears that some have taken offense at something I said. Apologies as I could have worded it better.
Apology accepted.
And I agree with you that I don't want the band to become a nostalgia act. Metropolis part 3 is the last thing I'd want, but I would hope that a sizable portion of the MM-era albums will continue to be included in the setlists from here on out. It's just that going from a playing a concert (MP-era) to putting on more of a Broadway style performance (MM-era) doesn't sit well with me, which is why I hope we'll see a return to how DT did live shows in the past.
I didn't mind the nods to Awake and SFAM on the DT12 tour either. But I am not a "Let's play a really old album in full tour" kind of guy. It's one thing if it's its own tour like the I&W&B tour, which I skipped, but I did not agree with overshadowing the DoT album tour proper with Scenes in full.
I don't mind a band celebrating an album anniversary, especially if done separately from a tour supporting a new album, or a second leg, but to do it repeatedly gets old. And it was starting to get old with DT. 2014 had half of Awake and 1/3 of SFaM, which I agree was fine. Then they did all of The Astonishing in 2016, which I was fine with and understood even if it's my least favorite album. But then they started to milk it with the IWaB tour and definitely crossed the line IMO when they did all of SFaM in 2019-20 even though they had just "celebrated" an anniversary for it 5 years earlier. I'm glad JP had the sense to stop the anniversary bit with the last album-tour cycle. Had they done something for SDoIT (which is one of my favorite albums) they would have gone full on into Yes territory with being a pure nostalgia act. Thankfully that didn't happen.
They should really include James in the decision process for the setlists. Heck, every band should pay attention to their singer when constructing a setlist. I don't mean giving James veto power or creative control on the setlist, just clue him in in the decision and be open to minor stuff like "is it really a problem if we play this song fifth in the set rather than third? the more I'm warmed up in the show the more I can deliver better that specific vocal passage", stuff like that.
I posted this in another thread last night, and I agree with you about James being involved.
...in a discussion about aging singers and the Dreamsonic tour...
To me, it wasn't James' performance that was startling...I mean it was..but it was the band's perceived indifference to it. I have not been able to come up with a good reason for it. I know MP was up front about the band sitting James down after the 6 D's tour. Has anything like that happened recently? Oddly, MP did what he could to protect James, removing the second verse in TTT, and having instrumentals in the setlist. Conversely, JP hung James out to dry, on a night to night basis by not making adjustments that were clear from the jump, but also forcing another tour on James, who clearly wasn't up for it.
Great point Timmay. MP definitely paid attention to what JL was capable of and what he realistically wasn't. It's interesting because they did do the full version of TtT during the 2007 summer warm up tour, but only when they were playing IaW in full. Otherwise, MP made sure the abridged version of TtT was played, and IIRC was also careful about where he placed it in the set because of JL. Likewise, MP also had them do an abridged version of Voices since (I believe) the 2002 tour as JL was struggling with that one even back then. The irony of it was, either JP and/or JL wanted to do the full versions of those songs - I recall reading some comments in at least one interview saying as much - but MP insisted otherwise.
So I would be curious to hear from others who also attended shows on the PN08 tour specifically (*not* PN09 because that was the opening leg of the BCaSL tour and so automatically you would expect a higher turn out for that part of the tour). For those of you who attended one or more PN08 shows, what do you remember about the attendance? Was the turn out the same, larger or smaller than what you normally would expect?
PN08 was my 2nd and 3rd time seeing DT (the first time was the 1st leg of SC tour less than a year earlier). Hard for me to compare the turnout of those two NYC PN08 shows to expectations or previous DT concerts.
What I can say, is those two shows were at Terminal 5 in NYC. A 3k capacity GA venue. I don't recall it being sold out, and maybe not even full, but the floor wasn't empty by any means. What my friend often tells me of his favorite memory was that after Opeth played, a significant amount of people left, leading us to go from the back of the floor to pretty close up. This happened both nights, but more so on night 1. If I had to guess based on my shady memory, probably around 2k people showed up. Which isn't that different than DT shows these days in the US.
For DreamSonic, they played the theater at MSG in NYC. This is fully seated 5.6k capacity theater style venue. Its pretty big. But they did curtain off the back section. I'm not sure how many seats that leaves, but I'd guess around 3k and the show didn't sell great leading up to it, but I think many people like myself bought tickets at the door to save on costs as inside it didn't look quite as empty as it did on livenation leading up to the show.... but it still was fairly empty in the back. Maybe another 2k showed up.
The CT Dreamsonic show would be shocked if more than 1k were there. Maybe even 500.
So I think the PN08 shows were typical attendance for DT and the DS shows were under performing.
Thanks for the insight! Interestingly, I saw them at the Theater at MSG but it was the final night of their North American Evening With tour in 2004, and IIRC, the place was packed. That was the show where MP asked one of the crew guys to pull someone from the very last row to get up on stage with MP to play the Siamese Monster together.
My theory is that mainly due to family obligations, DT started to transform from a band to a business after the problems they had during the FII era. The music got more formulaic and the changing music industry environment meant that they had to rely more on touring income than the album royalties but they could only be on the road for 4 weeks at a time because they are family men now. (Which is totally understandable.) At the same time, their fame within the musician circles led to additional income such as the ability to attach their names to gear, with the most successful one being the JP line of guitars. So much so that Petrucci now writes songs because there's a new piece of equipment coming out: Awaken the Master is promotional material for the 8-string JP guitar.
My experience in the music industry has taught me that if you achieve fame through your ability with any given instrument, there's an unwritten obligation to push the boundaries of what is possible with that instrument. The 2000's is when MP became the weakest instrumental member of Dream Theater, he stopped doing clinics and solos, and started referring to himself as a groove and feel drummer and given how he started his career, this could be considered a regression. I think/know some of his endorsement deals came very close to a termination within the last decade.
Very interesting insights Kocak - thanks for sharing. I can't say that I fully agree with DT becoming more of a business around the time JR joined - I think the business aspect probably started at least around the writing period of FII or maybe even earlier. Nonetheless, I'd imagine that over time as they continued the write-record-tour cycle repeatedly, some more of that business aspect crept in.
Regarding the potential for MP to have lost some of his endorsement deals, why do you think this was? Was it because MP was no longer in a big name band? I find this info surprising regardless because he has continued to be a big name among drummers despite not having been in DT for so long. Some of that might be because of the numerous other bands he was involved with, but I think also because he's a very sociable person in the music industry (far more so than the other guys) and knows how to market himself so that he stays visible.
As for all your comments about how he went about choosing which bands/projects he was going to involve himself with after leaving DT, I can't say I necessarily agree with your point that he was systematically picking out what style of music he was going to involve himself, although as I mentioned, he does know how to market himself, so that is always a possibility. Nonetheless, he has always struck me as being more of a person to go by his gut/instinct than plot everything out methodically as you seem to imply (apologies if you're not). In the case of AM, he wanted to work with Russell Allen, but it just so happened that RA had already started working with Mike Orlando in what became AM, so MP rode that train. For Flying Colors, Bill Evans was the one who put that band together although obviously MP was happy to get involved when the invitation was extended to him. So at least with these bands, it wasn't MP plotting the course.
Of course he was the impetus for PSMS, but even then, it wasn't like he was quick to start SoA immediately afterward. However, MP's willingness to put SoA together when he did could have been a response to the failure for all these other bands to succeed to DT's level, but I don't know if even that is true, as opposed to the fact that he was finally willing to return to doing something more akin to what he did in DT. But even though SoA was not a huge success initially, it's quite possible that it could have grown if given the proper time. Bumblefoot implied as much from the interview he gave when he first confirmed that SoA was done. So it's hard to say. Still, if given the choice to return to DT or to do something with SoA, I can't blame MP for wanting to return to DT after all this time.
I attended the May 2, 2008 PN08 show at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. We didn't arrive in time for 3, and watched some of the other two openers' shows but mostly stayed in the bar area because their vocals were laughable. DT had played the same 6,200 seat venue nearly a year earlier on the first leg of the SC tour. The Gibson had a pit area, two levels of fixed floor seats, and a mezzanine. For the PN08 show, I had bought front row seats on Stubhub but told my friends I bought them at face value, so I can't say I really noticed the attendance, but I think I'd have noticed if attendance was significantly lower than it had been the year before. I think the far side sections of the second tier of floor seats were mostly empty, as were the back rows of the second tier, but otherwise, I think both shows were well-attended (5,000ish probably).
Paul thanks as well for sharing your experience. I can relate because I was at both those shows, too.
Sounds like we had a similar reaction to the opening acts!
But yeah, from what I recall, both shows seem to have similar attendance levels.
Portnoy said they lost money on that tour if I remember correctly or at the very least broke even. I too skipped some of the bands. Regardless, I think that shows attendance didn't meet their goal but obviously bringing that many bands out adds expenses. Whether that meant attendance was less or the same, I can't say. But it didn't make money.
Actually, you're getting the PN tours mixed up. It was the 2009 North American PN tour that broke even. But I remember MP also commenting that at that particular time (summer 2009), ticket sales in general were light, so that could have been a factor as well.