It’s been confirmed by Mike Portnoy, although not officially announced: Opeth will be the opener on Dream Theater’s spring North American tour! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they’ll come back to UB or another local venue. Of course, it won’t stop me if they don’t stop here. That’s going to be one heck of a show. It would be awesome to hear Mikael Akerfeldt doing grunts with DT on “The Dark Eternal Night”…wow.
On Monday, Dream Theater came to Buffalo for the first time in 13 years. After that show, I think it’s safe to say that the wait for their next show here will be much shorter. Bringing along Redemption and Into Eternity, they packed the UB Center for the Arts to the gills. It was certainly a night to remember.
Into Eternity opened with a furious set of “extreme progressive death metal,” as they call it, which didn’t go over all that well. I saw IE a couple years ago when they opened for Opeth and Nevermore at Showplace, and that was more their type of crowd. There were a lot of older proggers there who probably couldn’t wrap themselves around IE’s crazy vocals. Redemption drew a better reaction. A highlight of their set came just before their final song, when the bassist announced that it was vocalist Ray Alder’s birthday, and Mike Portnoy came out with a cake and promptly smashed it into Ray’s face.
Finally, the moment all had been waiting for: the traffic light above the stage changed to green and the guys slammed into “Constant Motion.” I had intentionally avoided spoilers about this tour, and it was a good thing because they haven’t been changing the set lists so much on this tour. I was really pleased with the set list, though. The new version of “Surrounded” was great, especially when Jordan Rudess pulled out his new keytar and came to the front to take a solo. “Blind Faith” was another highlight, as the Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence album is a very sentimental one for me. In the spirit of “Octavarium,” there was a new cartoon on the video screen during the instrumental section of “The Dark Eternal Night.” I really hope they put it on the next DVD, as they did with the “Octavarium” animation. Finally, “In the Presence of Enemies” was just amazing. I get goosebumps just thinking of it. 
My only wish is that they would have played “The Ministry of Lost Souls,” which is probably my favorite of the new songs. I’m guessing that they’re saving that for the next North American leg of the tour, in the spring.
I don’t know if I can say that this was better than the Cleveland show last year, but it was definitely no worse, and even better that it was right in my backyard for once! That spring tour can’t come around fast enough.
Setlist after the jump…
In making setlists for their live shows, that is. So many bands play the exact same set, save a couple songs swapped here and there, at every show, and play mostly the same songs from older albums from tour to tour. Dream Theater (specifically Mike Portnoy) spoiled me as far as that goes. When MP makes the setlists, he usually makes the set significantly different from show to show. On top of that, he goes back to the last show they played in a particular city and tailors the set so they don’t play the same material they played last time. To me, that says a lot. That’s the work of a band that cares about its fanbase. I wish more bands would do the same.
I was digging a little, and I discovered that Toronto will be playing host to Kamelot, Epica, Sonata Arctica and Nightwish on 8/24, 9/15, 9/24 and 10/23, respectively. Looks like I’ll be putting a bunch of mileage on the new car…! And that’s just bands that have announced dates so far. I’m expecting dates from Symphony X, After Forever, Within Temptation and more, and hoping for Dream Theater. Thankfully, these Euro bands’ ticket prices are very reasonable, otherwise I’d be in the po’ house.
So I went to Best Buy yesterday to score a copy of Score, the new live release from Dream Theater. I was going to pick up both the triple-disc CD set and the double-disc DVD, but I was particularly interested in the DVD: in addition to the show (which was performed with an orchestra!), there’s an hour-long documentary and live footage from the Portnoy archives. Of course, they had no DVDs and I think I got the last CD copy that they had. Ugh, I miss Media Play!
I took a look at the dt.net forums just now to see if the Radio City setlist is up…it certainly is. Needless to say, I’m absolutely thrilled! (more…)
So I saw Dream Theater’s 20th anniversary tour in Cleveland this past Sunday. It was most excellent. Awesome show, and I had an awesome spot: front and center. Read on for a somewhat extensive review.Next up: Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson, April 10 at UB CFA. Not a big EJ fan but I’ve always wanted to see Satch. 
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Dream Theater is coming to Toronto on March 22! I’m there! I’ll probably just buy two tix and then try to find someone to go along. I thought about getting the premium package and going alone, but I’ll wait until next time. Maybe I’ll have my white Ibanez finished and ready for autographs by that time. Regardless, I’m psyched. I’ve only seen DT on package tours (’03 with Queensrÿche and ‘05 on Gigantour) so it will be really nice to see an Evening With show. I just hope they play ‘Octavarium.’