It is such a complementary band, one fully attuned to its own idiosyncrasies. And last but absolutely not least the other musicians - bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and drummer Mike Mangini - surround these guys with their own brand of face-melting awesomeness. There’s a good chance he will persuade you. ” Come out to the live show and listen to him then. And I never have the right answer, other than the default “well, he’s sung opera before. The number one complaint I’ve heard from people I have tried to recruit into Dream Theater Land is that they have an issue with the vocals. Why does the singer sound like that, they wonder. Then of course there’s the lead singer, Canadian James LaBrie, who is a character unto himself. Every time I’ve seen the guy play - be it in Atlanta, Cleveland, Asheville or Newark - I’ve been amazed how effortlessly the guy manages to seduce his audience, holding thousands in the palm of his hand as he unleashes a maelstrom of sound through those ever-reliable Mesa Boogies. There’s something electrifying about seeing Petrucci take center stage when he dives into one of his incredibly complex solos, even if you are like me and don’t exactly count yourself amongst the elite musicians of the world (I can’t even hold a guitar the right way). The power of that musician is in itself astonishing. So the Newark show was actually my fourth time seeing the band and while I can’t quite say it ranks amongst my favorite shows this experience reaffirmed the notion that Dream Theater is simply a band you have to see in the live setting. Freedom of expression finds a way, in the purest of musical outpourings not heard in generations, to stir the hearts of the people and shake the very foundations of power.įor more, you should visit the band’s official website at.
But in Ravenskill, a village situated on Endless Isleland, a lone voice heralds the arrival of a reawakening in human consciousness. The ever-watching omnipresent NOMACs (Noise Machines) broadcast an empty cacophony all that remains of music and creativity in this dystopia. After a great calamity precipitated a gradual societal collapse, medieval-like feudalism reemerged alongside the relics of technology and “progress” from a now all but forgotten era.
The Great Northern Empire of the Americas would look eerily familiar yet terrifyingly primitive to the people who occupied roughly the same territory three centuries before.
Or ever will be.įor those curious about what’s established here in The Astonishing: although I’m not sure Broadway is ready for something like that. Rumor has it that guitarist John Petrucci has ambitions of turning it into a Broadway play. It’s quite unlike anything the band has tried before and they have tried a lot of things in their 30 year history. While the album certainly features all of the elements and ingredients that have helped maintain the band’s longevity (they’ve been rocking since 1989), The Astonishing is undoubtedly their most ambitious and most exhaustive undertaking to date, featuring 34 tracks and running over 2 hours in length over the course of two discs overflowing with virtuosic musicianship, deep emotional hooks and conceptual grandeur. The Astonishing represents the band’s 13th studio release, and their third since the departure of original drummer and one of the band’s founding members Mike Portnoy in 2010. On Wednesday, Octothe New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark hosted Dream Theater for ‘An Evening With’ as the progressive-metal giants played in its entirety their brand new album, the sprawling odyssey that is The Astonishing - an epic tale of betrayal, loss, hope and redemption set in a dystopian future circa 2285 in an America not that dissimilar to the one you find in The Hunger Games.
0 kommentar(er)
