Location: Pordenone / Palasport Forum / Italy
Date: Monday, February 20, 2012
The decision to go to this gig was a no-brainer, light as powder snow. Seeing the champions of technical prog metal again is always a thrill, especially when they play close to home. We spotted some powder snow on the way too, but only as far as the Italian border, where the Mediterranean climate made short work of it.
It’s an old Italian habit: promoters announce the start time days in advance, then push it back by a whole hour. So support act Periphery only hit the stage at 8:30 p.m. The lads from the state of Maryland certainly try hard and are pretty solid instrumentally, and interesting too in that they don’t use amps, plugging their guitars straight into the mixing desk. The sextet leans on three (!) guitarists who play their seven-string axes with real gusto. One of them was definitely redundant. When I think that Petrucci does it all by himself in Dream Theater…
You can see they believe in the music with real enthusiasm. Singer Spencer Sotelo is even interesting in the “listener-friendly” registers, but the metalcore growling and screaming was too much and unnecessary for many. Plenty of people sought a breather at the merch stand and drowned their boredom at the bar. Periphery will need to freshen up their musical direction too if they want to leave a lasting impression.
Dream Theater, of course, made sure with John Petrucci’s very first notes that Periphery became just a bad memory. Much like powder snow in the wind, the fingers of all four instrumentalists in the band fly.
I saw them in the same hall almost fourteen years ago (April 1998) and can’t escape the comparison. It’s not so much about experience as the fact that they haven’t aged musically the way many would over such a long career. That gig was very convincing in performance, but the sound was the worst of all seven times I’ve heard Dream Theater. This time, John Myung’s bass was a little muddy at the start, but by the third song everything worked the way it should.
What’s surprising, though, is that despite the proverbially devoted Italian fans, the hall had room for at least 500 more heads. The crisis has clearly stretched out its tentacles…
The mostly male crowd didn’t fall into a trance, but knew how to reward the instrumentalists’ standout solos in true jazz fashion. Many times the audience chanted Pe – Tru – Cci and Man – Gi -Ni. Once again it’s hard to single anyone out, since their brilliance effortlessly captured our senses and moved us away from the real world. The apparent simplicity of the performance feels incredibly effortless despite the complexity. And it’s much more than that. Years of work, practice and accumulated experience still put them on the prog metal Olympus; together with the choice of songs, their delivery of the music showed a love of performing that’s still huge, and make no mistake, not a love of showing off. Mike Mangini as the newcomer comes across as totally integrated; sure, Mike Portnoy’s legacy is surely deep and weighty, but Mangini was more than convincing. He subordinated his playing completely to making the band’s sound as tight as possible. So just as much as was needed – and there was plenty of it. Dream Theater’s musical density is mostly extremely packed, but the masters soften it at moments with wonderful lyrical passages.
Dream Theater gave an in-depth showcase of the current album A Dramatic Turn Of Events. It doesn’t even matter so much why those particular songs and why that many; what matters more is that live they’re totally on par with any of the older ones. We older admirers of the American masters enjoyed ourselves most during 6:00, Surrounded, A Fortune In Lies and a couple of gems from the Images And Words album, Wait For Sleep and Surrounded. I’m stunned again and again by Petrucci’s incredible control of tone; the drama he conjures with the guitar is unbelievable. It’s clear to him that the guitar is an extension of his boundless musical ideas, and God forbid he should ever be unable to play, for whatever reason. He’d probably be gone in no time from sheer heartbreak…
Jordan Rudess gratefully complemented the melodies in most of the songs and provided a generous curtain of sound. Bassist Myung, despite the demands and complexity of the music, easily matched Petrucci, and the two tore through some hellish unisons, with Rudess occasionally lending a hand too (Outcry). A Fortune In Lies naturally showcased Petrucci’s whole arsenal: tapping, string skipping and lightspeed glissandi are just the three most obvious techniques.
Petrucci helped out singer James La Brie with his voice a few times, but in that department he came across as more or less faint. Not enough power, or too low in the mix, simply. Still, playing a tricky guitar line while singing at the same time is something I can only praise. As for La Brie, he still commands the stage with total confidence. He proves the saying that looks can be deceiving. The burly guy with the piercing gaze is nothing like what you’d picture. His friendliness and approachability are a welcome part of Dream Theater’s whole image. The amount of banter with the crowd was just right; La Brie made more of an effort than he needed to. At the start he quickly explained that the band had gained new energy with the new member and was writing a new, important chapter. The years show on him a little; it’s time to slowly sort out the hairstyle and deal with the inch of regrowth. He did his vocal job with distinction, and even treated us to three or four piercing screams worthy of Roger Daltrey in his younger days.
Drummer Mangini showed his mastery and versatility with the obligatory solo. Well, if he lectures at Berklee, you know he’s the real deal. Dream Theater really needed a drummer like that. He blew fresh wind into the sails and the little ship sails on. As a complexly compact but far from soulless machine, Dream Theater are confidently stepping into a new decade of musical life. The full confirmation of that statement happened on the stage of the hall in Pordenone.
author: Jernej Vene
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
Dream Is Collapsing (by Hans Zimmer, pre-recorded intro)
1.Bridges in the Sky
2.6:00
3.Build Me Up, Break Me Down
4.Surrounded
5.The Dark Eternal Night
6.drum solo
7.A Fortune in Lies
8.Outcry
9.Wait for Sleep
10.Far from Heaven
11.On the Backs of Angels
12.War Inside My Head
13.The Test that Stumped Them All
14.The Spirit Carries On
15.Breaking All Illusions
—encore—
16. As I Am
