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.
(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.