Anyone who listens to this band knows how long their songs can be, and with quite a few records under their belt, I was not surprised they had to pretty much choose one song from each record. These Walls from Octavarium and Forsaken from Systematic Chaos followed. Endless Sacrifice was great although the tune from Train Of Thought that I really wanted was As I Am. I guess a great opener like this wouldn’t fare well mid-set. Nevertheless, Ytse Jam was next and that was just mindblowing to see it live. John Myung was the most animated I’ve ever seen. We were standing opposite stage left which meant in front where John Petrucci was. Rudess still had his revolving keyboard setup (this time with a Kronos) which actually tilts. I swear he was tinkering with an iPad at times. Of course, after the jam it was time to check out the new guy’s prowess on the skins – Mangini’s drum solo spot. Just tengok the video excerpt lah:
They played one of my old (as in the year 2000) favs – Peruvian Skies before going all science-y with The Great Debate (love the haematopoiesis slide, guys!). On The Back Of Angels was an intro to what was to come in the up and coming record which will be out in September. A DT tune without Portnoy’s input? Not to worry, it sounds very DT, every single note of it. The main set was bookended by the epic The Count of Tuscany from Black Clouds. For the encore, they did not disappoint us punters with Metropolis Pt. 1.
It was a great two-hour show. The perennial DT fan that is my brother felt the set was somewhat vocal-centric looking at their choice of songs. He also picked up a few technical glitches (!):
1. Petrucci’s harmoniser not kicking in at certain parts of Fatal Tragedy
2. LaBrie singing in a different key at one point during Caught In A Web (I heard that!)
3. Mangini messing up a portion during Ytse Jam tapi cover baekk punya, which elicited a smile from Rudess
