What songs do you think they will play on the tour next year besides the new album? I figure the new album will take about two hours, counting the intermission between discs 1 and 2, and then we'll likely get an encore of three songs. My guess would be a super long one to close the show, an acoustic song second, and then a rocker first. I could see:
The Call
We All Need Some Light
Seeds of Gold
Alive Again seems like a natural again, given that it gives them the chance to all change instruments in the middle again, a for sure great live moment, but Neal/Portnoy tend to shy away from playing the super long ones on consecutive tours (not counting Transatlantic tours), so I think it's likely that they go back to Seeds of Gold, rather than playing Alive Again for the second tour in a row, especially since I am sure Portnoy will have a large hand in deciding and he was on the record as thinking Seeds of Gold was an all-time Neal song (he hyped that as an individual song more than I can remember him ever hyping any one song before an album's release).
I figure they have to play something again from The Grand Experiment, since it was the first album as the Neal Morse band, and The Call would slay. Then again, you never know.
Good call on "The Call", but I think it'd be fun if they played "MacArthur Park", especially since it's a great arrangement by Bill and it'd be nice to hear them play it live (AFAIK, they haven't yet, right?).
I'd like to hear them play "So Many Roads", with the new band, I bet this already good song could be taken to higher levels. It would also be good practice if they plan on playing all of the
Lifeline songs for Morsefest 2017...if it happens. Honestly, either that or "Seeds Of Gold" would be pretty amazing.
EDIT -
https://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/neal-morse-3d695bb.html?song=So+Many+RoadsLooking at this link, it looks like "So Many Roads" was only ever played live TWICE!!! And one of those performances was released on the live album named after that song, so in comparison to the 13 times "Seeds Of Gold" has been played live, I think it'd be nice to see SMR get its chance in the sun.
And almost assuredly, they'll either play WANSL, "King Jesus", "Reunion" or "Sing It High", though I would love to be proven wrong and they not play ANY of those three (or "Wind At My Back" or "June"). I'd love to hear this band cover other songs that they haven't played yet, like other SB songs that Neal has probably not played in awhile, like "Thoughts" (either parts 1 or 2), or maybe something like "Waste Away" or "Gibberish" or "Goodbye To Yesterday", something rarely played or obscure, just to throw everyone off.
OR...they could just play a medley of random Neal Morse tunes, like pick a song from several albums, string them together as a sort of musical-history of Neal's solo works? Who knows... Neal (and Mike) can come up with basically anything and the encore will be fantastic!
-Marc.