37 posts tagged “dream theater”
Progressive Nation 2009 was VERY awesome. As I mentioned before Wassy and I went off to Albany to catch one of our most anticipated concerts of the year. The bands were Scale the Summit, Bigelf, Zappa Plays Zappa and, of course, Dream Theater.
We left for Albany around 3:30 and aside from one small hitch (some local construction had closed one of the lanes of a 2 lane road for 2 freaking miles why the paved it. Totally unnecessary...) we arrived at the parking garage on schedule. We grabbed some sandwiches and headed over to the venue a few blocks away.
Wassy grabbed a ridiculously overpriced t-shirt (seriously...$40 for very thin shirt?? Add $5 if you're XXL) and we settled in for the show.
First up was Scale The Summit which I liked well enough. They were a pretty dorky looking band, honestly. One of the guitarists wore his guitar so high it looked like a necklace. They had good music but it was a little same-y for doing a setlist like that. There's definitely instrumental bands that I like better. After they had their set, we decided to go see what beers they had on tap. They happened to have newcastle which was one of the ones we like (we're kinda picky about beer) and so off we went.
Bigelf started soon after we got back to our seats and man, they blew me away. I liked their studio CD but seeing them live really made the whole thing "click" for me. Very high energy show and their main vocalists is...scary looking. Complete with top hat and a coat with a long beard. I am definitely going to have to pick up more of their stuff.
Zappa Plays Zappa...eh. I had high hopes for this band as it's the sort of music I might enjoy. And sure enough the first couple songs were really good. But then it got...weird. Too weird for me. I need a little song structure in my songs. So instead I spent an hour and 15 minutes being bored.
However, about halfway through the ZPZ set, two obviously huge older Zappa fans came and sat in front of us in matching tshirts and one pair of binoculars. It should be noted at this point that we were sitting in the 9th row. Binoculars at this point seem a bit unnecessary. But use them they did. In fact they sometimes fought over them so they could watch the individual fingerings of the flute/sax player I guess. Anyway, despite being huge zappa fans and practically bouncing up and down through the entire set, they got up and left before ZPZ was finished. They confused the crap out of me...but it gave me something to watch.
After Zappa Plays Zappa, the main wait for DT arrived and, man was it worth it. They have a totally badass way of opening the show this year. Their stage setup is also really cool with a new upgraded video show and some neat stuff that Jordan does with a HDTV behind his setup that has a computer animation of him playing that's synced with the song as he's playing it.
The setlist was A Nightmare to Remember, A Rite Of Passage, Hollow Years, Erotomania, Voices, Prophets of War, The Count of Tuscany and with an encore of Metropolis pt 1. Pretty much the perfect setlist.
Wassy and I were praying that we were going to get Voices this time as it's one of our favorite Dream Theater songs and we thought we'd get it in Washington DC last year, but ended up not getting it. So the moment the first note of Erotomania was played, we went kinda crazy. My throat hurts this morning... But it was so worth it. Voices! It still feels a little like maybe I imagined it. Those were all the songs that I was expecting to hear and even the extended soloing bits in Metropolis pt 1 were pretty cool. Sometimes they can go on too long, but the band was interacting and having a lot of fun which kept things interesting.
James LaBrie was good last night, but I've heard him better. I've also heard him much worse. He hit all the right notes but had a little trouble in Metropolis which is a hard song to sing at the end of the night anyway. He was totally on in the showmanship department. Interacting with the crowd...lots of energy and it looks like he's in better physical shape than he has been in the past few tours too. I was particularly impressed by Jordan and John Petrucci during the introduction to Hollow Years where they had a really neat extended introduction solo that was just the right mix of technical and melodic stuff.
I'd put this as one of the best DT shows that I've gone to (this is my 8th DT show). I do enjoy going to concerts with Wassy as it seems like she has some sort of concert karma that makes the show extra awesome. And going with a friend who's as into it as you are is much more fun than going alone.
After the show got done, a quick walk back over to the parking garage and an easy drive out completed the evening. We ended up making an emergency stop at a McDonalds in Herkimer since we were both pretty hungry after the show and couldn't find anything good on the thruway.
All in all, a very enjoyable evening and well deserving of the anticipation
This morning is one of the longest mornings ever because in an hour I get to leave work. And then 3 hours after that, my friend Wassy and I leave for Albany to catch a show on the Progressive Nation 2009 tour. As I mentioned earlier.
It felt a little weird last night since it didn't really seem like we were going to be going to a concert today, but here we are. I've got my ear plugs ready and the GPS all programmed and I'm ready to go. Just need to get out of work so I can run my errands and get everything all set for the trip out.
Didn't report much on the goings on of this weekend because it was a lot of relaxation. It was double XP weekend in City of Heroes so Wassy and I (Jay's been really tired recently so he excused himself from the festivities) did some CoH-ing. It got me more interested in playing the game so I've been dabbling back in from time to time since. We also did some Rock Band/Guitar Hero which has been a long time in coming. Nothing much interesting to the outside observer I suspect, but some much needed relaxation for me.
I hope to post again tomorrow with a ProgNation update.
Well, it seems like August is shaping up to be an extremely busy month for me. He's a rundown of what's going on (so far) this month:
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August 4th - Progressive Nation 09
First up on the list of August events is a concert. Specifically Progressive Nation 09, featuring Dream Theater, Zappa Plays Zappa, Bigelf and Scale The Summit
I'm pretty excited about this show. It's been a while since I've gone to a concert first off and second the new DT album is extremely good which always makes me even more excited. Finally, I've been listening to some Bigelf and Scale the Summit and I've been pretty impressed with what I've heard. There was a change in the openers, but I can't say I'm terribly dissapointed with the end result.
- August 9th - Sterling Renaissance Festival
I had originally not planned to go to the Sterling Renaissance Festival this year, but my sister contacted me recently and she really wanted to go. So plans were made for us to go either August 9th or August 16th depending on if it's going to rain either day.
Hopefully we get good weather as I'm really looking forward to going. The two weekends are themed as Gypsy weekend which is new this year so it'd be neat to go see it and Wine Lovers weekend which will work out as well. -
August 15th - Family Gathering
Instead of doing a christmas eve party on my mom's side of the family this year, it was decided to instead move the traditional family gathering over to the summer and head out to the official family campground, Whetsone Gulf State Park.
This is another "I hope we get good weather" event, but I'm hopeful it'll work out. It'll be nice to get together with everybody and hang out. With the option of getting away and wandering the park for a bit if necessary too. Should be a fun time had by all, assuming of course that the weather cooperates nicely for us.
- August 28th - The State Fair
Yet again my friends and I are planning to hit the state fair. This year though we're going out in the afternoon (after lunch) hitting all the building stuff, just eating dinner there and then exploring the wine tasting stuff in the evening. Last year we discovered we really liked it when it was getting dark out and the crowd was thinning out so we're planning the trip to avoid some of the crowd. Yet again, I hope we get good weather this year.
This also helps mitigate a bit of the costs of going considering we're there for less time and eating less of the overpriced (but tasty) foodstuffs.
So in the apartment recently, we've been working on battling one of the scourges of summer: Ants. I know why they decided to visit us (we haven't been as good about cleaning up the kitchen as we really should be...but we're getting better on that now) but these things are like mutant ants.
We finally figured out where they were coming in yesterday when, due to the accidental spillage of some sugar on the counter they had formed a decent line going to and from the spill, feasting mightily. So we've repositioned the ant traps and we're hoping that they show some interest in them some day. I tossed some new traps out on our balcony as well since they've been out there as well.
We will defeat the ant incursion or die trying. Or something like that.
Lets see, other stuff that has happened...
I can't believe it's less than 2 weeks to go to see Dream Theater on the Progressive Nation tour in Albany. I'm extremely excited about this show considering the new album was pretty darn awesome. Looking forward to seeing them live again. it's been quite a long time since the last concert I've been to.
Also I can't believe that I'm actually going to be going back to school for something starting pretty soon too. My course in digital typography starts pretty soon (end of august) and I'm going to be actually paying them shortly for it. Just feels kinda surreal. I'm pretty excited about exploring this direction right now, so I'm hoping something good comes out of it. Doesn't hurt to try in any case.
I've been working on designing a personal portfolio type site as an exercise first and I really would like to have just a place on the internet that's a hub of stuff I'm doing and where to find me elsewhere. Not that many people really care, exactly, but it's something to do. My mom also wants to set up a website for her crafting stuff so I'll be going over there next week to talk details.
Doesn't seem like I'm running short on projects that I can tackle to help develop my skills.
After Systematic Chaos was released 2 years ago, I doubted if I would ever be excited about the release of a new Dream Theater album. But then they released A Rite Of Passage as a single from their new release and I started getting excited and anticipating.
Well...today is the day. Black Clouds & Silver Linings has been released. I'm going to be leaving detailed impressions for a later post in a couple days once I have time to digest it, but my overall feelings of this release are pretty darn positive.
Lyrically, it's a fairly weak effort, continuing the trend started on Systematic Chaos. Almost everything with John Petrucci lyrics is fairly blah. Especially The Count Of Tuscany.
But musically, this album blows Systematic Chaos out of the water. One of the trends I was weary of was their tendancy to wedge crazy instrumental sections into the middle of songs without any transition or reason for being there. But this time out, they've pulled back from that a bit. There's a couple of rough spots, but overall, the songs have an actual structure to them and a natural flow.
Jordan Ruddess also impressed me with his restraint on the keyboards. He plays for the song more often than not and really contributes positively to the album, even on his solos.
But the real star is John Petrucci. This album contains some of his best work (and some of his worst...see Wither...but that's only one song). His solos are melodic when they need to be, technical when it's called for and overall awesome. Especially the solo in The Best Of Times. That's one of the most emotional guitar solos I've ever heard. And one of my favorites of all time.
Speaking of The Best Of Times, it's probably my favorite track on the album. An extremely emotional tribute to drummer Mike Portnoy's dad who passed away last year. The lyrics here are the very best the album has to offer, in my opinion.
Overall a solid effort that's a step in the right direction coming off of their weakest album (in my opinion). Great music tempered by very blah lyrics in spots.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now with general impressions and I'll post up a more detailed review in a few days once everything sinks in. It's going to be a very good year for music.
Well, I may or may not have mentioned this but Dream Theater is coming to the Palace Theater in Albany with their Progressive Nation 2009 tour. It's a really awesome venue and close enough where it makes sense to try to go. Wassy and I were a bit iffy this tour because of the lineup. There's only a couple bands we really wanted to see this year instead of the dream lineup that it was last year.
The tickets went on sale today, and since Wassy doesn't work mornings she was on deck for trying to pick them up. 10am rolled around and I got a call from her basically saying the entire floor was sold out about 2 seconds after they went on sale. I checked and she was right...the best seats available were either pushed up against one of the walls on the floor or up in the balcony. Blargh!
There was much tweaking and cursing but eventually, after 15 minutes of searching I ended up randomly pulling center orchestra, row A (which is about 10 rows back from the front). So eventually it worked out. But...it was a stressful ride getting there.
I can't wait until the day ticketmaster dies. Their crappy website and their horrible fees are doing more to hurt the music business than piracy ever could. They're basically a monopoly...I can't even begin to imagine how they're still able to operate like they do. DIE TICKETMASTER...DIE!
This one is also going to be a weird one. The book is...
Lifting Shadows
by Rich Wilson
Lifting Shadows is the authorized biography of the band Dream Theater. If you recall, I picked it up at the Progressive Nation show in Albany and had it all signed and such. The book was really interesting. I thought I knew a lot about the history of the band but there was several periods of the time where I was really surprised about what was going on. It shocked me to learn how close they were to breaking up and calling it quits a few times.
My one complaint about this book is that the author uses the word "Ironically" a lot. As in, everything is ironic. Everything. I'm usually not terribly annoyed by bad grammar or something like that, as long as it's not horrible. But this crossed the threshold into obnoxious territory. I also started to get annoyed by how the author would describe the various albums, adding his own commentary to the descriptions of the tracks. I already know what the music sounds like...and I really don't care if the author thinks that a certain track is a classic or not. I'm reading it for the band...not the author.
Of course this one is weird because a) it's so limited in scope and b) even if you were interested it's going to be practically impossible for you to get a copy at this point. It's just a really good read for anybody who's a fan of Dream Theater, or even somebody who's heard of them and wants to look inside the way a band develops long term over a span of 20 years.
This one's going to be a short post since the activities of the day were pretty much limited just to a concert and a little bit of wandering.
But first an addium to the last post since I forgot to mention it. I believe I mentioned that we didn't bring milk thinking we could find it in the hotel store area. But we were mistaken. So we had planned to stop on the way back from the crab eating to grab some from a CVS we knew existed near the national zoo. However, I decided to trek out once we got back from the fountain wandering in the afternoon. As it turns out, there's a whole bunch of stuff just up the street from the hotel which we didn't know about. Which really sucks because if we knew about this stuff last year, we wouldn't have had to make a death march to a safeway in order to pick up subs. There was a 24 hour CVS, a Wendy's, as well as a bunch of other places to eat. Grrrr....noted for next time.
So Day 3 consisted of us mostly just hanging out waiting for the concert to happen. We went out for lunch at Wendy's and then because we needed to vacate the room in order to give it time to get cleaned we decided to head out to the navy memorial to hang out since they had fountans and it was cool just hanging out by the water.
When we arrived though, we found they were going to have a wreath laying ceremony followed by a concert, so we hung out for that. And we got to see some actual secret service agents! The ceremony was pretty cool to watch, as was the beginning of the concert. However, we were starting to get a little hot because of the sun (very bright and sunny weather we've been having all trip long) so we went back to the hotel and hung out for a couple of hours before we had to leave for the show. Metro cards in tow, we headed out for the last outing of the trip.
We arrived at the venue pretty early since we had wanted to grab food from a street vendor near the venue. Which we did. It was actually pretty good, although somewhat expensive. Makes sense though since it was right on the parade route.
Then we went to the show which was simply awesome. We ended up using the floor tickets which were MUCH closer than we had thought they would be. Dead center, right on the floor...very good stuff.
All three bands we went to see played awesomely. I also managed to meet a couple of the members of 3 and have a CD signed by everyone.
Dream theater blew the doors off though. The crowd was so into it and the band was obviously feeling that energy and they put on a stunning show. We ended up making the last metro train back, which I was worried about and then falling into bed at the hotel room.
My next post will be back home in New York, as we're just about ready to head out the door. It's been a good vacation so far.
Yesterday was quite a day. If you would recall, I've been planning on attending the Progressive Nation 08 tour which consists of 3 of my favorite bands (3, Opeth and Dream Theater) and one band I don't care for (Between the Burried And Me). And, as you may also recall, I had intended on going to the Washington DC show because, although Albany was closer, it was a general admission venue and I prefer seated venues to standing room only.
We had originally intended to go out to albany yesterday anyway to attend a Mike Portnoy in-store meet and greet appearance. Then Wassy was contacted by a member of the mikeportnoy.com forums. He had purchased a platnium package but couldn't make use of it because, it seems, his brother was going to the show and he didn't want to leave him hanging, so he gave it to us. $300...per ticket. We were pretty nervous that things weren't going to work out because the logistics of the situation were very unsure. We wouldn't know until after the show for sure. I had originally intended to bring a poster to have the band signed, but I was worried that it wouldn't make it through security. Which it didn't. Oh well, it would have been cool, but it wasn't the end of the world. I threw it back in my car and went in without.
Once we got in, our friend handed us his laminate back stage pass, told us where to go and it seemed like we were all set. The actual concert was very awesome. 3, the band was very cool live, as always. The sound started off pretty bad but got a lot better as it went onwards and they have a huge stage presense. It was really cool watching the number of people in the crowd cheering them on increase dramatically as the set went on. I'm glad they're getting a lot of exposure out of this show.
After their set we hightailed it over to the merch tables so that I could purchase my backup plan for signing (a paperback copy of Lifting Shadows, the official Dream Theater biography book) as well as get some 3 swag, I bought a nice t-shirt. We also hung around and Wassy bought a copy of Wake Pig and had it signed by the band. I'm planning on picking up a physical copy of The End Is Begun next week and getting that cover signed. as well.
We went back up to the tiered seating to stake out a good place for Opeth while listening to Between The Burried And Me. I really like them musically, but their screaming vocals really turn me off. Needless to say, I was happy when they had left the stage.
Next up was Opeth which was a band I had always wanted to see live. And they rocked the house. The sound was a little muddy to start with where I was at but it was adjusted pretty good by the middle of the first song. They're a really awesome live band as well, with lots of energy. Mikael Akerfeldt, their front man/main creative force is also very funny on stage between songs. I can see why his banter is considered to be stuff of legends. I liked it just as much as I liked the actual songs. They played a new song off their upcoming album which sounded really cool.
After Opeth, the wait for Dream Theater began. I was starting to get excited about the meet and greet. And getting tired because there had been much rocking out that was going on for the past couple hours and it was starting to catch up with me. But DT hit the stage and it all went away. We had a really awesome setlist, including Strange Deja Vu, Though My Words and Fatal Tragedy, the new version of Surrounded and Take The Time. Even though we had already seen about half of it at the last tour, the new stuff was very awesome.
And then came the moment of truth...the meet and greet. Would we be allowed in? Would everything run smoothly? We grabbed our stuff and headed to the meeting point while the crew was disassembling the stage. Jenny, the meet and greet rep came out and grabbed all of the VIP people and took us backstage, to a very scary looking hallway that appeared as though might have been used as a secluded hallway in the past for "taking care of" people who you never wanted to hear from again. It was also where they kept the fallout shelter.
It was at this point we realized that this was actually going to happen. Jenny started handing out DT swag, including a DT bandana and a guitar pick. We then got some snacks and candy to hold us over while the band was eating their cheesecake factory supplied food (We saw the guy walk through with a bunch of cheesecake factory bags. Somebody yelled out "They get cheesecake factory??" and he said "You already got your stuff!" and kept right on going). Jenny went over the rules. No grabbing the crotches of the band members was the one that stood out.
Then we waited some more, and while we were waiting, we got another surprise. The members of Opeth appeared and walked through our little gathering, so we got to say hi and I happened to be in the right spot to shake Mikeal Akerfeldt's hand. Then the guys appeared. We started taking pictures with them, with Wassy and myself doing ours together. She stood by James LaBrie and was all excited when he put his arm on her shoulder. She's a James LaBrie fangirl, you see.
We went back in line to get ready to do the meet and greet. Wassy had brought some art of hers to gift to the band as a thank you for the music and such (pictured to the right there), so she did that and got a copy signed for herself. I didn't really have much to say as I was kinda in awe being 3 feet away from the guys that really launched all of my current musical taste. I basically just did a lot of "Really awesome show, thanks for the music" stuff. I thanked Mike Portnoy for doing all the stuff he does for the fans, and told James LaBrie that I really loved his voice.
As we walked through, Wassy got some attention from the meet and greet manager who wanted to know more about the art and what she had done to make it. And then after that there was a manager of a production company hanging out who wanted to see it and gave her his card and told her to send him an e-mail with some more contact information.
All in all it was a very awesome night. Spoiled slightly because of the fact that we had some massive vending machine troubles on the Thruway during the return trip. We needed something to drink and first the vending machine wasn't taking dollars...then it gave me back my change in nickels, then another machine took 2 of Wassy's dollars when everything was sold out and only gave her back one...but eventually we semi-sorted it out..except for that lost dollar.
I'm still coming down off the high of meeting the band, and Opeth and everything going as well as it could have gone. And now the pressure is off for the DC show to be perfect. We're just going to go relax and have a good time that weekend, get out of town for a little while and decompress.
I leave you with a shot of my signed copy of Lifting Shadows.
As you may reall, I'll be heading down to Washington DC in a couple weeks to catch Progressive Nation '08 which consists of Dream Theater, Opeth and Three. Well, there's another band, but I don't particularly care for them. Anyway, what I didn't plan on was heading out to Albany to catch another show of the same tour the weekend before. But here we are.
The story starts last monday. I returned home from work to a message from Wassy simply stating "!!!!". I asked what was up and she quickly informed me that she had just recieved a message from a guy that's a regular on the Mike Portnoy.com forums that I visit often. He bought platnium tickets for the show, which means he spent $300 per ticket to get let in early to get up front, as well as get backstage passes to meet the band, get stuff signed and take a picture with them. However, it seems he doesn't want to do the meet and greet thing...so he's offering his two backstage passes to us, for free.
We had originally intended to go to Albany that day anyway because the drummer (Mike Portnoy) was going to be having an in-store apperance and we wanted to go. But now we're going to the show too. Can't pass this opportunity up, that's for sure as I don't think I'd ever be able to justify spending $300 per ticket to go backstage.
So needless to say, I'm extremely excited at the chance to meet the band that pretty much opened my eyes to all the good stuff that's out there underground, even if they're not my favorite band anymore.
