Dream Theater Sydney 5th December 2009

I was lucky enough to be present at the Dream Theater gig at the Hordern Pavilion, Sydney last night. I thought you might be interested to hear about the show.

This is only the second time that Dream Theater have been to Australia (the last was in 2008). I think that they had some difficulty in selling out the show, as I paid $AU 129.90 for tickets, and they were later on sale for $AU59.90. Still, I was lucky enough to get the very last 'meet and greet' ticket for the show.

First up were Pain Of Salvation. They were generally well received by the crowd (many of whom obviously knew about them), and played for almost 1 hour. I must admit that they had a few problems with the sound, which was too 'muddy' for my taste, but overall they were a well above average support act. I thought that their comments about the discomfort of traveling from Brisbane to Sydney (1000km) in a van were most amusing and probably very accurate.

The Dream Theater setlist was as follows
         1. A Nightmare To Remember
         2. A Rite Of Passage
         3. Guitar Solo
         4. Hollow Years
         5. Keyboard Solo
         6. Prophets of War
         7. The Mirror
         8. Lie
         9. Wither
        10. The Dance of Eternity
        11. One Last Time
        12. Solitary Shell
        13. In The Name Of God
        14. The Count Of Tuscany

My feeling is that when listening to a Dream Theater set you can regard the setlist as a basis for improvisation - many of the pieces bear only superficial resemblance to the album tracks they originally came from. The opening track is a great example of this - I wasn't really impressed at all by the studio version of this track, but put it in front of an enthusiastic audience and add some improvisation and you have a winning formula.

It was obvious from the setlist that the band were trying to play a good representative selection of their music, playing a song from most of their well known albums. The absence of Pull Me Under really didn't detract from this philosophy.

I won't go through the tracks one by one, but there were several stand outs. A Rite of Passage was excellent, as was Solitary Shell. Wither was used as a brief quieter interlude. If you thought that In The Name Of God was a heavy track on the album, then you really need to listen to the track live - a recorded  album can't do it justice. The Count of Tuscany was a good encore, although I was a little disappointed that there wasn't too much improvisation involved here.

Dream Theater's sound was a marked improvement over Pain Of Salvation. I would have liked to hear some more of John Myung's bass in the mix, also somewhat surprisingly Mike Portnoy's drum sound was a bit muted. John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess had a lot of solo time to themselves. I enjoyed the big screen at the back of the stage portraying Jordan in a Wizard's hat, playing a 5 sided keyboard completely surrounding him! There really wasn't a drum solo as such, unless you count Mike Portnoy getting off his stool and walking around the drum kit while still maintaining the percussion.

Overall, I consider that this was an excellent gig. I think we're very fortunate that Dream Theater chose to come to Australia once again. Whatever you may think of their recent studio releases, there is no doubt that they are an wonderful live act, full of energy, improvisation and excitement. Highly recommended.

For the few reviews I've read from Dream Theater on this tour, it seems they have been changing their song-list a lot.

Two of my friends went to this show, and I would've gone, but we were leaving for holidays on the day they played in Sydney
I'm super dissapointed I had to miss it, but glad you enjoyed it. Great review anyway!