Artists: Dream Theater, To-Mera

Venue: City Hall, Newcastle   

Date: 9 June 2007   

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.

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.

The 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.

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.

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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