Any big Dream Theater fans on here? Share your story and thoughts!

Mark IV

Member
Here's a little back story because I'm pretty bored right now.

I've been listening to DT since I was born in 1993 when Images and Words came out. I'm 20 years old now and I've just always been a prog rock kid at heart from my father who was the biggest DT fan ever. (he passed about three months ago) He was the only one I could truly talk to about them and it was so sweet. Right before his passing, we saw DT for the first time together about two months prior in Chicago and I had bought the tickets in January as a surprise to him.

I'm going to post on the DT forums as well, but figured the FAS group might have some cool members to chime in on this as well seeing how Petrucci is an active Fractal user as well.

So if you guys have any cool concert stories, opinions on a favorite album/bootleg, favorite Petrucci setup/tone over the years or just anything at all DT related let's hear it! (Attached my favorite album as an image)
 

Attachments

  • Dream_Theater_-_Metropolis_Pt._2-_Scenes_from_a_Memory.jpg
    Dream_Theater_-_Metropolis_Pt._2-_Scenes_from_a_Memory.jpg
    99 KB · Views: 17
Last edited:
I started listening to them when "When dream and day unite" came out.
Huge fan when I&W dropped, amazing album.
Saw them on every tour up until Scenes from a memory and lost interest and haven't listened to them since.
Think the songwriting suffered when Kevin Moore quit it all got more technical and the listenable parts became fewer for me at least.
I also think JP played more melodicaly in the early days, hear so much more mechanical shredding stuff later on.
Also I tHink i just got tired of LaBrie's vocals, sounds a bit forced to me.

Met JP by accident one time in 92'. Super cool and down to earth and seemed happy to talk gear/geeky stuff:)

Will always respect them ofcourse, fantastic band!
 
Bought Images and Words when it came out and to be honest I didn't really get into it. I always respected the musicianship, but never really got them. Fast forward about 6 months ago and it's been like discovering some big huge secret of awesome. A pretty big fan if not really up to speed on everything about them, but I like the music a lot. Ironically Images and Words seems to be my favorite album of theirs right now, but I still have some more digging to do through the catalog.
 
Wow, great and sad story. Scary how life is ( I see it everyday as a physician). Probably my fav. band of all time. Finally combined all the elements of music I was after, you know which ones, basically the complexity of Prog (esp Rush) with the heaviness of Metal. Im over double your age and found them a few years earlier than you. I was at a friends and found an MTV music sampler cd. My best friend (who later toured with them in his band Redemption (check em out if you like DT-singer Ray Alder fates Warning), and I heard "Fortune in LIes" they were listed as majesty; we ran to the store and figured out they were no called DT and picked up the first album (prior to images). Again so sorry about your father.
 
Used to be a big fan until they kicked Portnoy!

I was really sad to hear about your father! My condolences...

+1. They should have docked Port a grand for every spit and gave him a bucket.

Always a fan of DT but the singer always makes me cringe a bit.

My thoughts were they should have kept Portnoy (he was an original after all) and gave the operatic singer a vacation.
 
I've personally only seen them live a few times in Houston and Austin, but I do have a cool story. Back during the Falling into Infinity tour my brother and a couple of friends bought some tickets to go see them in Houston, however my brother came down with pneumonia for several weeks and missed the show. His buddies felt bad that he missed the show and decided to stick around afterwards to see if they could maybe get the t-shirt they bought for him autographed. They approached a roadie at the stage and told him the situation. The roadie said hold on and walked off. A few minutes later he came back and told them to come with him. They went back stage expecting to hand the t-shirt off to someone to get it signed. The roadie opened a door and there was the whole band chilling after the show. They invited my brother's friends in and they got to hang out for something like 30 minutes and got a whole bunch of awesome autographed swag to take back to my brother. He's a drummer and a huge Mike Portnoy fan, and Mike signed a pair of drumsticks for him. My brother's friends said they were all the coolest and most grateful guys. My brother was blown away when they came back and told him the story and gave him all the swag. I think he also has a shirt, some picks, and a set list from that night that's signed by all of them too. I wasn't really into DT at the time, but I still though it was a really cool thing for them to do.
 
I hung out with Labrie in his own dressing room drinking some special wine we brought; later during Count of Tuscany, he spotted us in the audience and raised a pretend glass to us during that passage in the song. (sure you say he spotted you, welllll) later on the tour bus, hanging with him and Myung, James says did you guys see when I toasted you!) very cool. Nicest guy.
 
I first heard about DT in a guitar mag. It was a review for IAW and basically said "Metallica meets Yes. A progressive rock fan's wet dream." Metallica meets Yes is exactly what I was trying to achieve, and when I heard the album it was a case of "thats exactly the sort of music I want to be making".

Oddly when I got to see them live, it was LaBrie that surprised me the most. I new the other guys could play flawlessly, but James sang like a powerhouse for THREE HOURS. I was hoarse before the first song was finished. Strangely, I have actually liked the last 3 James LaBrie albums better than the last few DT albums. Guillory/Sfogli FTW.
 
Oh yeah, when I was putting together a Prog band and needed a drummer, Mike Portnoy cane through my town doing a clinic. We figured that the drummer we needed would be there, so we printed up some flyers: Drummer wanted, blah blah double bass, blah blah odd time, influences include DT, Queensryche, Rush, Yes, Floyd, Metallica, Megadeth, etc. Got him to sign the flyer ("Sorry, I'm taken") and he loved the infueces and recommended I check out a new band he had been getting into called "Spock's Beard".
 
Christian - I'm glad you got to share such a cool experience with your dad and am sorry to hear about your loss.

A high school student at the time, I first heard "Pull Me Under" on the radio while in the car with my best friend and bandmate. Our jaws hit the floor as it was like they were doing exactly what we'd been aspiring toward. We were into the other prog greats of the time - Fates Warning, Queensryche, and Psychotic Waltz - but DT had something different going on. I became obsessed with them and modeled Petrucci - from pretentious shirts, to learning his parts, to copying his rig (which was a slow process due to "budget constraints" -- couldn't afford the 6 refrigerator-sized racks --- after about 10 years I had the Ibanez guitars with DiMarzios, TriAxis, 2:90, oversized Mesa 4x12, Lexicon MPX-1 (couldn't afford the PCMs), dbx compressor, etc.). Though my playing is most often compared to Vai, I've learned far more of Petrucci's material than anyone else's.

See, e.g.,


As luck would have it, I got a ticket to NAMM that year and, fortuitously, it was on the day JP performed in the Ibanez booth. He played a bunch of instrumentals, including "Barfbag" through a TriAxis/2:90/2290/2x12. It was crazy because there were only like 20 of us in there. His tone was unreal. I mean un-fn-real! My buddy who'd gotten me in, an excellent musician and blues guitarist, super into SRV and The Beatles (as in: not prog/DT), unbeknownst to me, was in the back of the room the whole time. First words out of his mouth (again, a SRV/Beatles fan) were, "Oh my God - his tone was amazing!". I got to meet JP afterward which of course had me on Cloud 9. That said, though he was really nice, he and I didn't seem to vibe very well.

A couple of years later, I saw them on the Awake tour (with Fates Warning opening up). Odd to say, but it was one of the roughest shows I've been too. (That darned 7-string!) Somehow, I'd found my way backstage after the show and got to meet the whole band (with Sherinian on keys as a temp at the time). James LaBrie was really cool and humble. Myung was quiet. I remember asking him if Derek was going to be their new permanent keyboardist and it made him really uneasy. Portnoy was loud and had a lot to say, but really cool too. Sherinian was really nice. And again JP was nice, but we just didn't vibe. Once again I was on Cloud 9, only to exit the venue and find my car'd been towed. :mad: (I parked across the street at a local burger joint that was closed. That's right, CLOSED. It was open when I came out and my car was gone. What the hell kind of burger joint is closed at 5 PM but open at 11 PM??)

I met the present lineup on the 6DOIT tour. Not a fan of that album, the show was immensely boring to me - I remember fighting to stay awake and contemplating leaving early. Anyway, I hung out afterward and eluded the badge checkers (lesson: just looking like you're supposed to be there is often enough -- worked at DT shows, Meshuggah, Geoff Tate, and on...!). Impressions were generally the same. LaBrie explained to me he'd ruptured his vocal cords on the Awake tour and that his range had been impaired ever since. I asked him what he thought of Russell Allen's singing, and he replied, "I don't like his tone.". I found Jordan difficult to talk with. I was trying to compliment him on one of the songs on The Wheel and he seemed more focused on the way I was characterizing it - I think I was saying "Middle-eastern sound" and he was saying "Irish" or something - couldn't get past that to hear my compliment. This time I talked to JP about his "silky delay". He explained the Lexicon applied an attenuation to the high frequencies. Been using the trick ever since.

I'm with Powers of Ten above though. DT revolutionized my concept of music as a teenager, but anymore they don't do anything for me. Kevin Moore seems to be one of the key pieces to what made I&W so magical. While Jordan's chops are inhuman, what he plays and what seems to be his writing style is sort of boring and predictable. Dramatic had some alright stuff on it, but I think the new one is horrible. More, the loss of Portnoy was a devastating blow. Mangini is amazing on his own, but in context I've always found him lackluster. He suffers from what I call clinic drummer syndrome - like Thomas Lang: he can play anything in the world perfectly in a clinic but when put in a band situation, he's boring. I thought so when Mangini played with Vai. And I think so again with the DT stuff. His playing is surprisingly inaccurate and his drum sound is terrible.

My present DT resolve is to stay aware of their releases, however, as to avoid the immense disappointment I experienced after purchasing and listening to the self-titled trainwreck, I'm going to Spotify any future releases before blindly plopping down the $10.
 
Also, just wanted to share that I own a pretty cool piece of DT history. Anyone remember when Live Scenes from New York just happened to come out on September 11th with the album art work being the twin towers in flames? As soon as the planes hit, they had all of the CDs removed off the shelves in stores, sent them back and re-did the artwork for it. A really big controversy that a lot of DT fans don't even know about! We just happened to make it out to the record store that morning and snatch the last copy before it was gone!!

$_35.JPG
 
I'm a fan ever since I&W. Was into PF, Rush, Saga, Kansas etc. but after hearing I&W crossed over to the heavier side of music. Heard all of these influences I mentioned when listening to I&W. Been to several shows over the years, have all their CD's, including about 4 Christmas CD's: you got these when you were member of the fan-club. Never met them personally BTW.
 
I've seen a live concert on YouTube several years ago and since then, really dig Dream Theater for their extreme virtuosity. Practically every member of the band is a genius with his instrument. And even if you slow their live performances down by 50-75%, you will not notice a single missed note or impurity of technique.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of their songwriting in general. And I'm not talking about LaBrie here. I find it amazing that he is still trying to sing after his vocal cord issues and I respect that ... but the music just tends to get ... exhausting if you listen to it for a very long time. I know DT is not easy listening, but still, the total absence of memorable lines, lyrics and simple, effective choruses makes their music really hard to swallow.


I've been on a DT concert in Bamberg, germany this year. It was really fun and enjoyable... until the second break.
I know, I know, a lot of people will not agree with me here, but a 3 hours concert is just way too long for this kind of music. And they didn't even play the songs everyone wanted to hear. Yeah, I get it, as a musician, you want some variety, but come on, at least play one of your biggest hits! It was a very exhausting experience (and the bad acoustic of the stadium didn't help either).

Did I have fun? Totally! Would I go on a DT concert again? Probably not. There's just a lot of bands where I had a lot more fun at concerts that I'd rather see a second time. Not that I don't love DT, it's just that I feel I don't miss anything if I won't see them again. Call me mainstream if you like, but there's just something with bands that aren't just great bands, but also great entertainers, like Rammstein, Foo Fighters, Metallica, etc. ... I go to concerts for the whole experience, not just the music. And that's what DT is lacking imho.

Even if I see local youngsters like 'Kraftklub' (a german indie band), the audience is going fucking nuts. It's these kind of concerts that you will memorize and keep attending.
 
Last edited:
Nice thread Christian and it's sad to read that you lost your Dad... but you clearly have lots of good memories to move forward with - I'm sure you'll do him proud
friends.gif


Like several others, I've been a big fan since Images and Words when I was 23. Have caught them three times in UK (Scenes / Octavarium / Chaos) and still rate them as one of the most consistent bands who are capable of delivering quality at all ends of the musical spectrum and do it in a way that most can only dream of. I just don't buy the 'not as good since such and such left' - to me, it's the same but different, not better or worse

My band used to cover Pull Me Under in '94/'95 - the same time as my wife had our son baking nicely in her tummy. She would attend gigs and he would kick like mad when we played that song. It stayed his favourite tune right up to his teens and at 19 now, he's still a big DT fan. Loves the likes of Karnivool too and doesn't have any time for One Direction etc
laughing.gif
 
I got into Dream Theater when I&W came out and have pretty much called them my favorite band since them. I have seen them in Toronto 8 times, and saw JP with G3 (Satriani, Vai, Petrucci) as well. I was at a guitar clinic a few years back with Petrucci and got to chat to him for a fair bit about life, the universe, and everything. I marvel that someone who is so talented is still a regular, well-grounded guy.

The cool thing about following a band for that length of time, is to watch the audience makeup change. For most of the previous concerts the audience was 30 & 40-somethings, with a few real grey hairs sprinkled in. The old guard of prog-rock from the 70's, I guess. At the Systematic Chaos concert, I was struck by how many teens and twenty-somethings there were in the audience. Almost the whole row in front of me was a bunch of late teens wearing Amon Amarth and Opeth t-shirts, and totally digging the band. I have also introduced my two 20 year old kids to the DT. They haven't missed a concert since Octavarium.
 
Nice post, also my condolences about your father. My dad, who I lost 3 years ago, was an avid guitarist who began teaching me from a very young age. I actually introduced him to DT shortly after my EVH phase, and he loved it as much as I. Some of my best memories are of us rockin out on long road trips with Images & Words and Awake on repeat, amplifying the anticipation of the surf sessions that awaited at our destination (another favorite activity he passed on to me).

He was a huge jazz fan and pianist as well, so it wasn't all about Petrucci. For example I remember watching the Live in Tokyo concert on VHS with him, and the pure enjoyment on his face during Petrucci's jazzy improv in To Live Forever. It's the small memories like that which count!

Personally, my favorite albums are Images & Words, Awake, and SFAM. I've done a lot of thinking lately as to why I haven't gotten into the last few DT albums. I'm pretty sure it all boils down to the lack of fond memories I can associate with them during that time of my life. I had been out of college on my own, working crazy hours building a career, and just didn't have the time/opportunities to share excitement over the new tunes. Those early years will also be the soundtrack playing in all of my memories.
 
I was a big fan since I&W and used to follow the band, but lost some love for the band since Systematic Chaos… My fav period of the band is when Kevin Moore was on board, although I also love SFAM and ACOS. In the previous decade, the band started to sound formulaic, à la Iron Maiden, which is not what prog is about. I traveled from Mauritius to France two times, and to Singapore one time, to see them play. I also wrote a review of the Singapore concert for Your Majesty, a French fanzine for which I was also a sub-editor. The French forum is still here but the fanzine ceased being published for some years now. I have no special story to tell except that in February 2004, at their gig at Le Zénith, Paris, I had a pass for the aftershow meet & greet but didn't go, as I feared missing the last subway. No regrets whatsoever, I'm not groupie-minded ;)
 
Back
Top Bottom