Transatlantic, Mexico city Feb 11 2014

At last came the day for this concert, and I really enjoyed it a lot. Needless to say, the musicianship was superb and left nothing to be desired. Except perhaps a bit of the vocals, which has always been my least favourite aspect of the band, but here they sounded particularly weak, specially the ones that were not from Neal. I'm talking about the official member, though, for Ted Leonard was easily the best singer of them all, and I wish they had given him more lines to sing... still, even so, I would have liked Daniel Gildenlow on vocals even better... too bad, and I hope he is better and able to return with the band soon. Also, as usual, Portnoy did all his best to be the center of attention, speaking to the audience all the time and taking the lead more often than Neal himself (I mean, usually the singer is the one who adresses the audience the most), and it was obvious he was having a great time. But then, he wouldn't be Portnoy if he didn't do so, would he?

The set-list was very good... well, just about anything they would choose to play would be at least enjoyable, but for me the first songs were the more enjoyable. First, "Into the Blue" is, for me, the better song from the new album, and here it was played with such power it almost sounded like prog metal, then, "My New World" is also my favourite (original) song from their debut, and it was great to get to hear that one. Then comes what, for me, was the lowest point in the concert, with "Shine", still a nice song, but they could have played something better... but after that, the best of the show, with the songs from "The Whirlwind", which is by far my favourite album by the band, and almost anything they would choose to play from it would be a higlight on any show. They played a bit of the Overture, with a bit of "The Whilrwind" song itself... that's not been listed in any of the set-lists of their shows I've seen, including the one for this show, but I believe it must have been so (unless I'm getting confused), because they had a bit of a vocal section which I undestand doesn't begin on the album until the second song. However, after that comes the other parts of the album, "Rose Colored Glasses", "Evermore", and "Is it really happening", all great of course, though they played them a bit different, kind of faster or something, and I had to get used to it, but all the same it was great; and then they ended the Whirlwind set with the final part of "Dancing with Eternal Glory", which is my least favourite part of the album, but here it was actually more like a Grand Finale, for they only played the part that was sort of a reprise from "The Whirlwind", and they played it in a much more grandiose manner. All in all, I wish they had played more from that album, and particularly "Evermore" sounded truncated without "Set us free" following it.

Now, after this, the show wouldn't really have any more such high points any more. Next was "Black as Sky" and "Bridge Across forever" (with a small jamming section between Neal and Roine as an intro, which I believe is already kind of traditional). This were both very enjoyable though. Then they should have gone on with "Kaleidoscope", but at some point one of Neal's keyboards broke down and he couldn't keep playing, so while the techs tried to fix it, Neas did a pair of bonus songs. He sang and played on acoustic guitar (with a slight suport on bass by Pete) "Bridge across Forever" and then when the keyboards weren't ready yet, also "Beyond the Sun". This was a fun little part of the concert, neither songs are ones I enjoy so much, but the spontaneity with which they were played was very nice. You could see Neal wasn't ready for playing them, specially "Beyond the Sun" which hadn't been played live yet, nor had it been arranged yet to be played by him on acoustic guitar only (as far as I understand), so what he did must not have been very easy, and he couldn't help but laughing at times when he was having trouble with the songs. In the end, the techs ended up taking Ted's keyboard so that Neal could keep on playing his leads. I'm not sure how much of the sound was lost for the parts Ted wasn't able to play, but they didn't affect the performance in any notable way... at least not for me, and it ended up adding a bit of a comic part during the few occasions in which he was suposed to play his keyboard, for he just extended his hands to were they were suposed to be and looked at the audience moking his lack of keyboards. Now, for the "Kaleidoscope" song, of course it was enjoyable, but it had some parts much stronger than others. The same could be said about the econre, a Medley with the first half "All of the Above" and the second half from "Stranger in your Sould"... though I would much rather they would have played the halves the other way around. All in all, a wonderful night, to enjoy a lot of great music.

Yeah, I would have liked more Whirlwind, and for what I have read, I'm not the only one... it seems to be a favourite for many. However, given the tour of the new album, the set-list they chose was perhaps the most logical. As for a cover, I would have enjoyed much more "And You and I" than "Giant Hogweed", which I have never been particularly fond of (neither on it's original version nor Transatlantic's one)... but even better would have been "Nights in White Satin".

Actually, neither of the songs Morse played during the keyboard glitch were among my favourites, nor was the performance particularly good... actually it was very unprofessional, given that they didn't have them planned nor rehearsed. But it was the spontaneity and honesty of the performance that made that bit so enjoyable. Even Morse would laugh at his own mistakes and difficulties to play those bits... perhaps mistakes many of us in the audience wouldn't even notice (I certainly didn't). However, not many people would have been able to pull it off without making a fool of themselves.