XDA

Went last night to the Fillmore, to the Dream Theater concert (a band I had hardly heard of before and certainly had not heard before consciously). I was not the oldest guy there, but it was a close run thing. Went with the same crew who went to Porcupine Tree plus 1/8 of the old gourmet club, Scott, whom I have missed. He had some weird thoughts/news? about the double ex fiance (about whom I still think fondly from time to time--more fool I). Mark bought the tickets again. Thanks, old man (he's British). And I had a great time. Did Republican drugs again (Makers Mark bourbon) and for the first set we were 30 yards back and I couldn't make out a single word. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing for a band who chooses as its name a concept from Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse (the only Nobel literature prize the committee regretted publicly). I don't think the lyrics are what makes Dream Theater a compelling and fun concert. Finally, to the review.

It's the quintessential rock band, guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist and singer. They call themselves progressive (like Queensryche and Fates Warning) and stand on the shoulders of giants of that genre: Yes, Genesis, King Crimson. There are other influences (I kept hearing strains of Uriah Heep) and unknown, un-named heavy metal hair bands from the 80s, when this band formed. There's definitely a hard edge to the intelligent music they play. They all had long pants on (which is a good thing) and t shirts (except for the drummer, Mike Portnoy, who wore a Rockies uniform shirt at first). The keyboard player, clean head Jordan Rudess, (central axis rotating Korg, what seemed like an honest to God Moog, and a new touch pad thing ( a Continuum) which I believe I read about in science fiction books in the early 60s) had on BDU pants in woodland camo (doesn't he know Ivory Coast twig camo is the in camo?). The drummer (looking like Stallone in Nighthawks) had the biggest drum kit I have ever seen, almost a complete drum store, and he played machine like (as Carl Plamer does). The 6 string bassist is Asian (tough to call more than that--but based on his name, John Myung, I'll go with French Indochina as region of origin), after a while he began to look a little like the girl out of the TV in the Ring, but he could really play, four fingers running up and down the frets, bending the strings, and four fingers picking them, just amazing. But I have to say the star is guitarist, John Petrucci. There was some discussion early on whether he was a great guitarist or just a fret wanker. By the end of the show I thought real, great guitarist.

The guitarist, bassist and drummer are the core of the band; they met at Berklee Music School in Boston in the mid 80s and formed a band called Majesty (from a Rush lyric, oh, there's another influence) and have gone through a couple of singers and a couple of keyboardists in 9 studio albums and 5 live albums. The current singer, James LaBrie could wail with the best of them, but I began to like it when he left the stage so the musicians could showcase their undeniable talent. The best was when they all played harmonious difficult progressions perfectly. One of my favorite memories, from a concert in 1971, is when Rod Stewart in the Faces came up behind Ron Wood and did the fretwork on the guitar he was playing. Last night Myong and Petrucci traded fretwork duties twice and missed not a note. Everyone smiled. Mike Portnoy throws the sticks up in a twirling arc a lot and then catches them just in time to make the next beat (80% of the time). Very cool show. The tiny bit of criticism is that the core guys rarely dropped into background--they were going all out, all the time and it was slightly numbing and certainly exhausting. But I'd go see these guys again in a heartbeat. Thanks again, Mark.