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With the
festival season once more upon us and like many of us, we just can't find
it in us to attend a festival where the line-up has only a few bands that
really get our attention. However, with this in mind a couple of
bands this year are doing pre and post festival warm up mini tours and so
when the mighty Dream Theater announced they were putting a few shows
together pre Download, it gave me and few more devoted fans the
opportunity to catch the band live without having to sleep in a tent prior
to the event, which to me is always a plus in my book.
Now with Dream
Theater not only playing a few pre festival dates, but also treading the
boards of the cities oldest concert venue, then I had to be there.
If you come from
the schooling of ... "for every positive reaction their has to be an equal
negative reaction" ... then tonight’s show was one of those occasions as
the night got off to a somewhat disappointing start with support act To-Mera,
who were at their best abysmal and after just one song of theirs I could
hear the bar calling my name, so off we trotted and by the crowd
downstairs the same thought had gone through a lot of the peoples head's
who were now downing their favourite beverage.
Now after
quenching our thirsts the bell went to tell us the headliners were about
to go on stage, so back to our seats we went for what was definitely the
positive side of tonight’s show, as a full house waiting in anticipation
for on of America’s finest progressive rock band.
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As the
lights went out all the anticipation of the crowd fermented into
enduring applause as John Petrucci, John Myung, Jordan Rudess and
Mike Portnoy opened up with the first few chords of ‘Strange Déjà Vu’,
then the biggest cheer went out as frontman James LaBrie came stage
front and the band were now complete.
Right from
the word go Dream Theater filled the City Hall’s walls with a cascade
of sound that I’ve haven’t heard for a long time and with Petrucci
just simply majestic on the guitar throughout the night, it was plain
to see that tonight was going to be something rather special. |
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band continued the set by going straight into ‘Panic Attack’, I don’t
know what it sounded like on stage but down the front it was simply
superb with LaBrie’s towering vocals rising above the crowd and
Petrucci’s quite astounding guitars making sweet music for us all. |
Things continued with the first of the
bands songs from the new album 'Systematic Chaos' the quite magnificent
‘Constant Motion’, which went down just as well with the crowd as the
older material, this trend continued with another song from the new opus
this time the staggering ‘Forsaken’, for anyone who hasn’t got the album
then this track alone makes it a worthy addition to my collection for me
anyway.
Anyone who has
seen Dream Theater before will know that James LaBrie is a man of few
words, but the words he spoke at this point in time were the sweetest for
the majority of the fans here tonight, as he not only announced the band
would be coming back later in the Autumn for a series of 6 UK dates, but
on these few warm up shows they would be performing the entire 'Images And
Dreams' album for some selected shows and Newcastle was one of those shows
to mark the 15th anniversary of the album. This news sent
the partisan crowd into raptures in the words of LaBrie ... "this is
'Images And Words'..."
Things got
underway with one of mine and many of tonight’s crowd favourite Dream
Theater songs ‘Pull Me Under’ and from this point on my night was made,
but for others it had just begun as the album was given its greatest
accolade as to be played live in its entirety as is was meant to be.
The band did the
album proud with Petrucci's magnificent guitar work and Myung’s pounding
bass lines, Rudess's fantastic keyboards all backed by the massive
drums of Portnoy (and I mean massive, his kit was just huge so huge he had
to switch between two stools).
The show
continued with the soaring ‘Another Day’ and ‘Take The Time’ which gave
the crowd another chance to lift their jaws which had dropped from the
news of a tour later this year and sing along to the choruses before
bringing the tempo down a touch with ‘Surround’, another superb rendition
that was pitch perfect with the album, with LaBrie and Rudess bringing
it to a superb close as keyboards and vocals were in perfect harmony.
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LaBrie might be
a man of few words but put a mike in front of him and let him do his stuff
then their isn’t many in the Prog Rock field any better, as he showed on
‘Metropolis Pt 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper’, with Petrucci just rising
above the soaring vocal with some quite exquisite guitars and Rudess
spinning around his revolving keyboard set up (that will no doubt feature
on a few more keyboard players wish lists this Christmas), Portnoy’s great
drum parts and Myung’s thumping bass lines, this was the band at their
finest.
The tribute to
'Images and Words' continued with the storming ‘Under A Glass Moon’ and
‘Wait For Sleep’, before the album closer ‘Learning to Live’ which
finished off the main portion of the set.
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The band had
hardly left the stage when the crowd were baying for more and more they
got as the band finished off a great show with ‘Home’, which gave the
crowd another chance to exercise their vocal chords. As I glanced at
the drum kit of Portnoy he had changed into a Newcastle United shirt, but
not only had he been bothered to adorn the shirt, he had also gotten his
name put on the back which I thought was a nice touch and for me
highlighted the bands delight to be playing here. Let's hope they
will bring the new tour back up North because these fans deserve it.
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