Location: Ljubljana / Hala Tivoli / Slovenia
Date: 04.02.2014
A musical institution like Dream Theater needs no special introduction. Next year the guys will be celebrating a round and already rather venerable thirtieth anniversary. Despite a vast repertoire spread over twelve studio albums, their second album, Images and Words, is still the fan favorite, and sadly we didn’t get to hear a single song from it last Tuesday. But more on that later.
The first encounter with Dream Theater, or just a slice of them, back in 1998 still rings in my head. Back then, with no special promo, John Petrucci packed Ljubljana’s Festivalna dvorana to the last corner with his guitar clinic. And I’m sure all of us there remember his words: “I can’t believe so many of you showed up. Imagine if the whole band were playing. I promise we’ll come see you on the next tour!” And since a promise is a promise, the Americans really did show up the following year and played an unforgettable show in a sold-out Križanke as part of the Metropolis Pt.2 tour. Dream Theater have visited us a few more times since, most recently in 2009 on the World Progressive tour, presenting their then-current album Silver Clouds & Black Linings. Nobody realized at the time that it was one of the band’s last shows with Mike Portnoy behind the drums. The charismatic drummer parted ways with the band in 2010, after his bandmates wouldn’t “approve” a one-year break. The virtuoso Mike Mangini then stepped into his boots, and he had the tough job of winning over the Slovenian crowd.
Despite the ice storm that gripped all of Slovenia, a big multinational crowd of people thirsty for quality music gathered in front of Hala Tivoli, and among the faces you could spot a few familiar names from the Slovenian rock scene. Sadly, as so many times before, the security setup got messy again. One entrance for the floor and one for the stands, each with one security guard for body checks and one for ticket checks, predictably caused long lines, and the ever-heavier freezing rain only made the situation worse. To get people into the hall faster, one of the organizers had to jump in with an extra scanner. Putting the stage up against the stands gave a great view of the stage from the stands, but it also meant a relatively small floor, which filled up in no time.
A huge curtain in front of the stage promised an audiovisual assault on all our senses, and the guessing about what awaited us that night ended at 20:30, when the hall lights went out. The instrumental intro to False Awakening Suite from the latest album boomed out of the speakers, while on the curtain, in a brilliant play of animation, the cover scenes of all their albums spun by, starting with ‘When Day and Dreams Unite’ and ending with the current self-titled ‘Dream Theater’. When the curtain dropped, the band hit us with the first single from the new record, The Enemy Inside, and proved we were in for an energetic night. When LaBrie joined the instrumental part on stage, he proved to every doubting Thomas that vocally he’s nowhere near ready for retirement.
Since the band split the show into two acts (remember the concept album Metropolis Pt.2), it was no surprise that the first part went mostly to newer material, mainly from the last two records, like the Grammy-nominated On the Back of Angels, the current The Looking Glass, and the song that gave the tour its name, Along for the Ride. Special mention in this part goes to the epic, almost 15-minute classic from Falling into Infinity, A Trial of Tears. It’s a complex piece, full of slow and fast sections as well as constantly shifting rhythms, and definitely not an easy pick to play live, but the band clearly didn’t break a sweat. Whether Mangini measures up to Portnoy in Dream Theater was something he could try to prove in the current instrumental Enigma Machine, which got a drum solo thrown in. Personally, the solo didn’t convince me, despite this virtuoso’s master status. Especially since I’d watched a few of his solos online before the show, and this one in Ljubljana was a pale shadow of what Mangini is capable of. Don’t get me wrong, Mangini is a top-notch drummer, and playing Portnoy’s parts clearly isn’t a big problem for him. Still, I felt the lack of something, be it just charisma or even soul.
Whatever the case, the show was a real treat for the ears as well as the eyes, since the whole performance was accompanied by a rich visual show on the big screen behind the stage, from fractals and brilliantly placed cameras above the drums and keyboards, through linking animations of a yellow taxi called Majesty (the band’s original name back in 1985), to the comic adventures of animated caricatures of the band during Enigma Machine. All of that, combined with a rich light show and surprisingly good sound for Hala Tivoli, justified every cent spent on this show.
After an hour and fifteen minutes, the band took a fifteen-minute break. The end of an act demands a pause, they say, but this one was only partial, since the spotlights stayed dimmed and all sorts of clips, mostly funny ones, kept rolling on stage. From ads for action figures of the band members and phenomenal guys and girls wrestling with DT songs, to the infamous Triangle Man, who’d love to become a member of the band.
2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of the release of Awake. Although it wasn’t received with as much enthusiasm as the previous Images and Words, it’s still a dynamic prog work that’s responsible for quite a few classics. In honor of the anniversary, the band decided to play the second half of the album in the next part of the show. With the end of the on-screen EPP, they launched into The Mirror, probably the heaviest song in their repertoire, and the fairly static crowd went wild, as expected. The hard, heavy guitar riffs seem made for headbanging, rhythm changes be damned, but that didn’t bother the Dream Theater crowd. The fact that the band chose to play half an album from two decades ago also guarantees we’ll hear some rare tracks that may never have been played live before, which is definitely a plus for music connoisseurs, and the fans of this band surely are that. If The Mirror, Lie and Scarred really got the hall moving, the excellent ballads Lifting Shadows of a Dream and the truly exceptional Space-Dye Vest sent it into a dreamy sway. The latter gave plenty of people goosebumps, and the crowd’s reaction was simply fantastic. The band closed this so-called second act with the epic, 22-minute Illumination Theory, which at times feels like you’re listening to a film score instead of Dream Theater.
With that song the guys said goodbye to the Ljubljana stage, but of course not for long, since loud chants of “We want more!” quickly called them back. Since this year is also the fifteenth anniversary of Metropolis Pt.2, we got four more songs from that very album at the end. As usual, they bid Ljubljana farewell to thunderous applause and standing ovations, proving once again that they manage to meet the high expectations of probably one of the most demanding audiences in rock music. The prog giants keep marching on, come what may, and we’re left with one more fond memory and the wait for the next tour.
author: Sebastijan Videc
photos: Jerneja Jerak
Setlist:
Act I
1. False Awakening Suite (intro)
2. The Enemy Inside
3. The Shattered Fortress
4. On the Backs of Angels
5. The Looking Glass
6. Trial of Tears
7. Enigma Machine (with drum solo)
8. Along for the Ride
9. Breaking All Illusions
Act II
10. The Mirror
11. Lie
12. Lifting Shadows Off a Dream
13. Scarred
14. Space-Dye Vest
15. Illumination Theory
—encore—
16. Overture 1928
17. Strange Déjà Vu
18. The Dance of Eternity
19. Finally Free
20. Illumination Theory (outro)
