Yesterday I was at a show of an italian power metal band (with some proggy inserts here and there), Secret Sphere. I found some parallelisms with DT.
It was their 25th anniversary, and several years ago their original singer returned, having been previously in the band from its inception until 2012.
This is part of the press release written in the YouTube description of the reunion album from 2021 (they just released another one):
"I spent the past two years thinking about the future of Secret Sphere and there was something missing. I needed to rediscover the joy in writing music for this band that has been part of my life for more than 20 years. And I'm pleased to say I found it. "Lifeblood" is the celebration of the joy to compose music," says founding member and guitarist Aldo Lonobile
The new album also marks the return of vocalist Roberto Messina to the fold, who fronted the band from 1997 – 2012. The reunion with Roberto takes everything back to those glorious early days for the band, with the same joy and will to make music for fun.
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His replacement, Michele Luppi, is a TERRIFIC singer. He's amazing. He's currently involved with Whitesnake as keyboard player and backing vocalist. But now that I got to hear the original voice back, the voice that accompanied young Mirrormask in his 20s with all those songs he liked..... it just feels right.
Also the singer at a point of the show remembered how they were all in school and the bassist and the guitarist approached him on the schoolbus asking him to join their band. You cannot erase a bond that lasts that long since your formative years.
So the parallelisms I see with Dream Theater are:
- The guys being lifelong friends and family since their young days
- The replacement being a terrific and absolutely great guy, while also...... NOT being the guy they replaced
So just as a bunch of kids that went to school together are now happy to make music together again, I'm sure that the other guys in DT as well, and JP first and foremost, just felt "the call" and how having Portnoy back felt right. They're not young anymore (young as touring and active musicians I mean), they know they're in the last part of their carrer, and having their brother back in the band is something ten other drummers put together could never make up for. At a certain point it's not a matter of who's the best drummer, it's just a matter of lifelong bonds being the most important thing of all.