Dream Theater-Seattle 9/27/2011
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Topic: Dream Theater-Seattle 9/27/2011
Posted By: Catcher10
Subject: Dream Theater-Seattle 9/27/2011
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 3:03pm
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Seattle is not a top city stop for most progressive rock, metal or heavy prog acts......LA absolutely, and I think San Fran gets the nod over Seattle. Dream Theater was last here in June 2010 opening for Iron Maiden, not really a tour and I think their last tour appearance was in 2004 for the Prog Nation show, Seattle was passed over on their BC&SL Tour...........I think that might have changed, at least in the minds of Dream Theater this past Tuesday night Sept 27, 2011......In short we got treated to a Prog Metal blitkrieg!!
Seattle I am proud of you! You absolutely brough the house down, it was complete mayhem during the entire show. Young, old, male, female did a tremendous job of showing DT that we were glad they included Seattle on this tour.
The venue, historic...The Moore Theater is just a wonderful venue, 100yr old building with tremendous character and a huge music history too, mainly early grunge. We have all seen the Pearl Jam MTV video where Vedder dives into the audience from a balcony ledge, filmed at The Moore, as well as many other artists which have filmed there.
I have seen some youtube vids of the LA and San Fran shows of the intro video and opening song, Bridges In the Sky, Seattle crowd was soooo friggin loud that we could hardly hear the Shaman trance, that song was very close to the highlight for me of the night, it plays very well live. And before I go further, we got the first setlist (or San Fran set) which did not include Breaking All Illusions. Here it is:
1. Bridges in the Sky
2. These Walls 3. Build Me Up, Break Me Down 4. Endless Sacrifice 5. Drum Solo 6. Ytse Jam 7. The Silent Man [Acoustic] 8. Beneath the Surface [Acoustic] 9. The Great Debate 10. On the Backs of Angels 11. Forsaken 12. Through My Words 13. Fatal Tragedy 14. Outcry Encore 15. Under a Glass Moon I will not detail the songs but for me I was perfectly happy with this set, I much prefer to hear Under A Glass Moon as encore rather than Pull Me Under, which has been played live a gazillion times. Build Me Up, Break Me Down was awesome, and getting to hear Endless Sacrifice was a treat for sure, crowd went nuts on that song.
Mike Mangini played very, very well. He hit everything spot on, I don't think he had any hiccups the whole night. His drum solo was actually entertaining. Most metal drum solos are a bore, generally just a bunch of tom rolls and dbl bass rolls and hitting cymbals with all their might.....no finesse playing at all. Mangini is definitely fast but it was good. You could tell he was having a great time, infectious smile the whole time, and at one point LaBrie "introduced" Mike Mangini and the crowd really gave him a rousing welcome, LaBrie had to give an extra few seconds as he could not go on till the crowd calmed down......That was good to see for Mike.
John Petrucci was on fire, as expected! What I saw though was his complete crowd approval and he appreciated the response we were giving him, many, many nods of crowd approval by him.
James LaBrie was in top form, vocally very good especially on the acoustic portion of the show. I will say one of the negatives was the soundmix guy was not good, many times during the show we could not hear James's singing, mic was too low, drowned out by guitar and also too much "boom-boom" from Mike's drums. But most of the time James sounded very good. He taunted the audience the whole show and again we responded with passion, all the sing alongs were hit spot on.......he was even comfortable enough to play with Petrucci's nipple, giving him a pinch (photo below).
Myung......a bass playing beast!! I just wish he would play more with his head up so we can see more expression from him, besides it was difficult for my wife to get pics of him...but she managed to get some.
Rudess was another one that was hard to hear a lot of the time due to the soundmix, shame as it would have been nice to hear him more, but what we did hear was normal great playing by him. He and Mangini fed off each other all night, but I also think part of it was Rudess making sure Mangini was playing in time with the rest, especially on Portnoy songs. I saw a lot of that during Endless Sacrifice and Under A Glass Moon.
The stage set was decent, it could have been better. The 3 cube screens was a nice touch but the actual live video feed was pretty amature'ish looking. Now I may be very biased here as for example the Rush Time Machine screen was basically a huge HD monitor and showed tremendous detail. These cube screens were fine but the feed resolution looked like a 1980's live feed, no color.
Mangini's drum kit is well....too big. Also seems like it is not ergonomically good for a drummer that will play for 2 hours. His octobans are above his head and a lot of his cymbals are very high up, making him have to reach a lot and I have to figure that after 2 hours his arms must completely be numb from the shoulders down......and to have to do this for a whole tour for 3 months? Ughhh....
The acoustic set was refreshing, nice add in. The Great Debate and Fatal Tragedy were also highlights for me and the crowd.
At the end you could see DT were pleased with the set, we actually saw Myung smile.....and Mangini was blown away by the crowd response, I don't think he realized how loud we were sitting behind his kit with the ear monitors in.
My wife did the normal and took a ton of pics, amazing job she did. She had one fan ask her for her contact info as he wants some of her pics....I guess she is becoming famous as my prog rock photographer!
Myself, my wife and two of my sons (12 and 16) had an amazing time. We were as close to the stage as we could get without having to buy VIP tickets, so we did good!
Here are some pics......Enjoy
            ------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |
Replies:
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:04pm
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Cool pics. Sounds like a great show. They come to Detroit on Monday but Tigers versus Yankees Game 3 is at the same time, so you know where I'll be. ------------- 
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:19pm
Well there are 7 games in the series.........u could miss one!  ------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:24pm
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Actually, there are only 5 games in the series, and only 2 in Detroit, and the tickets are already bought and paid for. -------------
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:31pm
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too bad.... ------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:39pm
Nah. I'd rather do the baseball game. Hopefully, I am still thinking that after the baseball game.  -------------
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Posted By: Diogenes
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:42pm
| There's no telling what I'd give to see that Silent Man/Beneath the Surface acoustic spot this Sunday, but it looks like we'll be getting the other set. Good to hear LaBrie is doing well live. |
Posted By: rushfan4
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 4:44pm
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Being the guys are from New York they may find themselves at the ballgame too, and just starting their set 2 or 3 hours late. Trivium may have to stall for them. -------------
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2011 at 5:05pm
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I did not mention Trivium in my review.........I know for LA and San Fran they got trashed on DTF site, no surprise. Certainly not to my liking, I do not like growling thrashy metal. Seattle LOVES that stuff......this is a huge market for bands like Atreyu, Bullet, blessthefall, Avenged7......They got a very good welcoming by many Trivium fans. I had earplugs in as I did not want my ears ringing during DT. My wife thought they were ok....my 12yr old was like ..." dad why does the lead singer spit all the time??" .
Anyhow, I believe that may have also helped DT as I suspect they know they have been getting questioned in some markets as to why tour with Trivium.....but not here.
------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |
Posted By: Colt
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2011 at 2:58am
Saw them for the first time with Mangini in July. They were electric that night too!  ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/colt2112" rel="nofollow - http://www.last.fm/user/colt2112 
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Posted By: Wilytank
Date Posted: 30 Sep 2011 at 5:24pm
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Aw, they stopped playing songs from Black Clouds and Silver Linings? ------------- 
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2011 at 4:15pm
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^ Yea the closest they got to BC&SL was Foresaken.....I would have prefered Constant Motion, but the crowd did go coo-coo on Foresaken. ------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |
Posted By: Wilytank
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2011 at 5:19pm
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I actually thought that the albums from Six Degrees... to Black Clouds... was DT's golden era. A Dramatic Turn... was alright, but I didn't care for the attempt to throwback to the old era with the keyboard sound. -------------
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: 01 Oct 2011 at 8:26pm
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I prefer the heavier prog metal sound of those albums........ADTOE is pretty good, saved by Bridges In The Sky, BMUBMD and Outcry.
That being said one of my favs is Train of Thought. ------------- US Festival '83 "Heavy Metal Sunday" Survivor.... |