Favourite Dream Theater Instrumental

I can't choose between Erotomania, Overture 1928 and Dance of Eternity!

Dim wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: HughesJB4 wrote: topofsm wrote: "Hell's Kitchen" for the win! Breathtaking instrumental, with some beautiful shredding. I don't know how anyone can say Petrucci is unemotional when he plays that solo. Also, the SoC solo 4 minutes in is pure awesome, but the song is far too long and it has far too few ideas for such a long one. HE PLAYS WITH NO EMOTION. Although that sucks, because no one is going to take that seriously when I say that. Seriously though, it wasn't really until Octavarium when I started to really be put off by some of Petrucci's solos I've seen many DT DVDs and I don't think the plays without emotion. If anything, I'd say that he simply doesn't let his emotion interfere with timing and precision ...which is something that he shares with many other players from Jazz and Classical. Only in Rock and Metal sometimes fans mistake "stage acting" and sloppy timing for emotionality.   One mans sloppy timing, is another mans emotion.   Really, I'd rather listen to music with a guitar player who's sloppy, and a singer who doesnt always hit all the notes rather than listen to a group that plays everything to perfection. Perfection (to me) equals lack of idea's, and a status quo performance. "Sloppy" Shows difference, and allows emotion to be shown.   IMO of course, I dont mean to bash anyone, I just like this argument!

I don't think there really is a band that ever played their live stuff to perfection though.
Even the tightest bands and artists on the planet are prone to sloppiness now and then.
A little sloppiness is cool, because it shows at least the performer is still human and not some insane robot.
I've seen Petrucci fluff up, I've seen Vai screw up parts of his songs, I've seen Satriani miss notes and nuances, I've seen video performances of Guthrie Govan having an average day too, and these are some of the tightest guitar players on the planet, make no mistake.

The idea that there is even perfection or even saying Perfection equals lack of idea is absurd.
You're telling me that local blues player that plays the same garbage each night, same bloody chord progression and is as sloppy as hell, has more 'ideas' than a progressive metal band that actually knows how to play and incorporates a wide variety of styles into their music so everything sounds different?
There is absolutely no correlation between technical ability and lack of musical ideas. You can be sloppy as hell and have no imagination, or you can be the world's most technical player and reel off song after song of brilliant, different ideas each time.
I'd say that Dream Theater, over their years as a band, has demonstrated far more variety, imagination and musical ideas and yet retain their technical prowess compoared to a local, sloppy as hell, AC/DC cover band.
That's a pretty fair statement don't ya reckon?

I can handle a bit of slop in playing, but when it gets to the stage where a guitarist can't even play in tune, can't add any nuances and subtleties to his playing, can't even do vibrato properly and can barely mute the strings properly, it just sounds like a mess, not good music or good playing.
People use to walk out of Led Zepellin gigs because Jimmy Page couldn't play for sh*t during his drug addict days, and I would have walked outta the gig too if all I heard was some druken/ drug addled idiot that can't even play a single note in tune or in time.

^ I love the ragtime solo!

^ It's just Dream Theater fanboyism. Everything great about them is over hyped a million times. At this point I'm preaching to the choir, but I try not to let people's comments about a band bother my enjoyment of them.

I like The dance of eternity most because it has something like 100 riffs and not a single bad one, and it was the first DT song I ever heared

Gandalfs Mother wrote: Overture 1928 is one of the greatest openings to any album ever in my opinion.

Keep in mind there is a song before this on Scenes.

Erotomania, has the sickest guitar solo I've ever heard Petrucci play. Can't go wrong there.

Stream of Consciousness. It's really not too long and not so bad composition-wise. I simply love the mood represented by that song.

Stream of Consciousness with Overture (1928) and Erotomania tied for a very close second (really tough to choose between those three for me)