LIVE SCENES FROM NEW YORK

Oh my goodness! I am so glad that I had the opportunity to see Dream Theater live on their Metropolis 2000 World Tour! They don't played over 3 hours like here documented on this in New York recorded final gig of the tour, but with 2,5 hours it was close to it! There also was an special support band on the plan, I haven't known at this time: Porcupine Tree! It was a great show and it was sure that I later became a lover of their music. Some intusiastic choir of P.T.-fans wasn't realized by the band as they had left the stage, so the show ends after 45 minutes. But that wasn't painful to me to this time, because the prog metal gods should come on the stage in few minutes (it was the first time I saw Dream Theater live)! The lights gone out, the introduction of "Metropolis Pt. 1" brought the amazed crowd on top (including me)! The Dream Theatre was on stage! The crowd completely freaked out (including me), what a show! But before this ends in an 20 pages-review to this unforgettable concert, I make a cut and come closer to this triple-live output! It's surely one of the best prog-live records of all time (going hand in hand with "Yessongs", "Seconds Out" or "Operation: Livecrime")! So much creativity, passion and excitement was never before banned on one live album! The complete "Scenes From A Memory" masterpiece is played live in furios versions! The unbelievable emotional performed "Through Her Eyes" (shows that Petrucci is the most flexible guitarist of the complete genre!) touches the soul more than the studio version, or listen to "The Dance Of Eternity" (it's time to realise that here are gods on work!), what an musicianship! Any single musician is an absolutely genius on his own and shows that Dream Theater are today that for the prog metal genre, what Yes were in the early 70's for the artrock/prog rock genre! Which other metal band got an gospel choir on stage ("The Spirit Carries On")? There is no band, who gets in my mind! That shows the big creativity of Dream Theater in performing! Some people and press say, that James LaBrie is the low-point of this band, because he stands beside all these unbelievable musicians, but he would be an truely winning additon to any other metal band. I don't think that he is the low-pole in the band, he fits perfect to the Dream Thater sound and it wouldn't be fair to title him as low-point. Listen to his performances in "Home", "Learning To Live", "Beyond This Life" or "A Change Of Seasons" for example and all these theses will be broken soon! Dream Theater walked into the foodsteps of god-bands like Yes or Rush with this output! I have no worries about that! No-Believers should make their own point of view, watch out for this masterpiece, let it take control over you and let it never go away from you! Sorry, but I couldn't hold my emotions back when I think about the concert that I saw live and listen to this live-godwork at the same time! This concert was the reason for me, to become an D.T.-fan for all the rest of my [%*!#]in' life! To get the full home-enjoyment, also watch out for the same titled Special Edition DVD!

THE MOTHER OF ALL LIVE ALBUMS!

This one sits up there with "Yessongs" and "How the West Was Won" in live album heaven. It really is incredible. It has everything that made Scenes of a Memory a masterpiece, brought to life with even more energy, some neat new additions and improvisations including "John and Theresea Solo Spot" which is an insanely emotional and incredible build up to "Through Her Eyes". "Overture 1928" has the same amazing power brought to life, live in front of a huge crowd of cheering fans. If you listen closely you will hear quite a lot of new additions that have perfected an album that was already pretty much as close as you can get to perfection. The concept comes alive. If you still cant find those new bits then buy the dvd and run the audio commentary as it mentions them all there!

Not only is the Scenes concert a masterpiece, but there is even more old favourites. The best of these include a beautiful version of "Another Day", putting Jordan Rudess in the spotlight, the "A Mind Beside Itself" suite from "Awake", and the whole performance of "A Change of Seasons". "The Silent Man" sounds even better on this live album as they have added in a little intro with a cool drum beat, whereas the studio version just burst in with the vocals. "A Change of Seasons" randomly goes into the Simpsons theme tune around halfway in, this track sounds way more exciting than the studio version which was quite a lot to take in. "Metropolis (Part One - The Miracle and The Sleeper)" and "Learning to Live" sneak their way in and are just brilliant to hear. James Labrie ends this classic 3 hour concert with the lines "sorry for the short set"! Personally i couldn't think of a better and cheekier way of ending such a brilliant piece of live music.

This really is the ultimate Dream Theater package as it has an unbeatable tracklist and is a 3 hour flawless performance. This is very much worth tracking down as it is definetly a bold statement that tells us just how good the progressive rock live show can be. Undoubtedly a masterpiece!

Amazing!

I cant get enough of it! I have listened to it so many times, and each time i enjoy it like the first time, so this is that kind of albums that you`ll always love , because it is simply lovable, and look that its not a studio album, is a LIVE album, so it`s really great to have this kind of live albums which make our body shake and make you feel with more power.

Live Scenes From new York, as the title says, the most of this album was inspired in their latest album of then, "Scenes From a Memory" which is one of the best progressive metal albums ever created ( of course IMO), and the concert was in New York. IMPORTANT: This is a 3 CD album, so if you dont tolerate Dream Theater, or Prog Metal, you wont get this album, maybe you will get tired after the first or maybe the second album. For me it`s great, 3 albums, 3 live albums, one concert, wow! amazing, and they performanced their best songs, if you dont know "SFAM", here you can listen to it entirely,some songs from "Images and Words", "Awake" and "A Change of Seasons".

CD 1: A Very emotional one, this first live album is SFAM, from "Regression " to "Dance of Eternity", so you can imagine, all the audience very excited, and of course we the listeners, because they play like in the studio album ( or even better) , telling the story, making great music, amazing changes in the songs and a great concept, but im not reviewing SFAM, so first live album its great.

CD 2: The last three songs from SFAM, ending with the great and emotional "Finally Free", after that, they started playing "Metropolis PT: 1 ", wow!, its perfect after SFAM, i mena, i think the sequence of the songs is great , each song in the best place, something which makes the album so amazing. IN this second CD, we can find a mix of the albums, like "The Mirror" from "Awake", "Another Day" from "Images and Words" and even a Liquid Tension Experiment track "Acid Rain", all these songs are great, well-known and of course enjoyable for any DT fan, this album ends with an awesome solo from Jordan Rudess, showing us his unique style and great skill.

CD 3: Pobably, and personally this is my favorite of them , its the perfect end of the concert, only 5 songs, but... what a songs. I said it si my favorite, maybe emotionally because Awake was my first DT album, and "Erotomania" my first love, so when i listen to this ,i really got shocked and so excited, nice to hear that song live. So it`s first 3 songs are "A Mind Beside Itself" from Awake, Erotomania, an incredible and great instrumental song," Voices" a very spectacular song, great music, so emotional and beautiful lyrics, and " The Silent Man" maybe a hymn of DT. Next, my favorite DT song (actually), i have the luck to see and listen to it in their last concert in Mexico City, that song is simply amazing, great changes, excellent musicianship, vocals , keyboards, all gathered together making excellent music. And the last song, is that special over 20 minute epic from their self titled EP " A Change of Seasons", after too much time performing, they also did this, its awesome, the longer song to the end, and believe me, its a superb performance.

So after all, im sure this album deserves 5 stars, its really great, one of the best live albums i have listened, i know the most of you know it, but if dont, run and buy it.

Over 3 hours of pure and powrful DT

Live Scenes From New York

A three stunning CDs package, recorded from the concert Live Scenes From New York. Once again, just like when I bought Live At Budokan's CD, I almost cried because I can just imagine what is the concert like through just listening to the magnificent songs in Scenes From A Memory. The worst thing is, I don't have the DVD and I didn't go to the concert, BLAH!! Anyway, in my imagination, the concert must be very great, because the CD is awesome and for those of you who have the DVD but not the CD, I strongly recommend you to buy the CD!!

Just to remind you, Scenes From A Memory is a concept album, means that the album is based on one theme or concept. Moreover, actually Scenes From A Memory (Metropolis Pt.2) is the second part of Metropolis Pt.1, which is a song, so personally I think Scenes From A Memory is a very long song which then transferred into an album. The album tells a story about a tragedy of a murder. Nicholas, went to The Hypnotherapist, where then he felt like a girl haunted him, actually, she is Victoria, who asked Nicholas to find truth about her murder. The real story is Victoria was murdered by The Miracle because of her love affair with The Miracle and The Sleeper.

The first CD contains ten songs from Scenes From A Memory, Regression up to The Dance Of Eternity. The coolest part is Dream Theater played these songs perfectly, flawless and very similar to the album, even James LaBrie. James LaBrie, sang very nice and constant throughout the first CD. Another thing to notice, there is John & Theresa Solo Spot, which just a "ooohh ohh howww ohhhh" thing with John Petrucci simple guitar line. HOWEVER, don't look at the technique, feel the notes, which are very beautiful and relaxing, a great intro for Through Her Eyes. Well, Through Her Eyes is even better, as you know, the drum in the song is just a drum machine, not played by Mike Pornoy. This is the best part, when the song finished, Mike Portnoy played the real drum, increase the energy and feeling of the song, ARHH!!! Very nice, John Petrucci played some guitar licks as well, pretty much like Hollow Years in Live At Budokan.

The second CD consists of the remaining songs from Scenes From A Memory, which are One Last Time, The Spirit Carries On and Finally Free. The Spirit Carries on is really great and the made it even better, because Theresa sang together with LaBrie in that song. Well I think she is sounded better than James LaBrie in that song, or maybe just in the part before the solo. Also, I still think that Spirit Carries On has the best solo of all time, just beautiful. After Finally Free, they played Metropolis Pt.1 and it fits the concert, I mean, first, the previous songs are Metropolis Pt.2, also the ending of Finally Free suits the intro of Metropolis Pt.1. Then they played The Mirror and Just Let Me Breathe, followed by a song from Liquid Tension Experiment 2, Acid Rain. The last three songs are the combination of New Millennium and Caught In A Web followed by Another Day. The CD 2 is finished by Jordan Rudess's amazing keyboard solo, he is a great player.

The last CD just consists of three long songs, A Mind Behind Itself, Learning To Live and A Change Of Season. Well A Mind Behind Itself is actually divided into three songs, Erotomania, Voices and The Silent Man. The overall concert (based on what I heard!!) is just amazing.

I give 4 big stars, just by listen to the CDs and because just like other concerts, LaBrie sang not very beautifully. Can anyone buy me the DVD??

Timur Imam Nugroho - Indonesia

In the pantheon of superb live albums, Dream Theater's Live Scenes from New York is among the top live albums I've heard in my mind. The setlist is superb, the musicianship is superb, the overall audio quality (which is very raw) is superb, the whole set totally exceeded my expectations when I bought it. Throughout the three discs of pure live excellence, one cannot help but feel amazed that a band can play like this live, as well as for a set this long (this one clocking in at near 4 hours). What you'll find here is the entire album Scenes from a Memory, with some live additions here and there, as well as a comprehensive and diverse set of songs from their previous albums (plus a Liquid Tension Experiment song thrown in the mix), and more often than not, the representations of the songs on this set totally exceed their studio counterparts in quality (rarely can a band do that, but in my opinion Dream Theater do that here).

The first disc and the first three songs of the second disc of this live set is the album Scenes from a Memory in its entirety. If you're expecting a note for note replication of this album, you'll be in for a surprise. There are many little added bits and live additions to this album, such as the John Petrucci solo (w/ Theresa Thompson giving wordless vocals along side him) that bridges Beyond This Life With Through Her Eyes, as well as little guitar additions to Beyond this Life, the extended outro to The Spirit Carries On (which was totally improvised), and the little live tag at the end of Finally Free that ends the live rendition of the album on a totally menacing note. The musicianship on this first disc is incredible and it's hard to imagine that they performed this album in its entirety for most of the tour itself.

The second set that occurs after Scenes finishes is the real meat of the performance. The opening rendition of Metropolis, Pt. 1 is only a taste of what is to come. I like this version more than the studio album save for the bass solo, which sounds too muddled and effect driven than the clean version of the studio counterpart. Other than that though, it's a perfect rendition of this Dream Theater staple. Other live highlights are The Mirror, which has a great extended Petrucci solo and is a lot meatier than the studio counterpart. Just Let Me Breathe is the only song on this set that is essentially the same as the studio song, there is no real addition or little fringe that seperates it from the bunch. For fun, they throw in a snippet of Liquid Tension Experiment's Acid Rain, it's a pretty cool rendition with some cool vocal during the drum break down.

Caught in a New Millenium is a brilliant combination of Caught in a Web and New Millenium (and you can hear Petrucci play some Paradigm Shift in the choruses). It's another live concoction from the group and it comes off terribly well. Superb stuff here. Another Day features some great sax from Jay Beckenstein and is much better than the I&W counterpart. The second disc ends with a 6 minute keyboard solo from Rudess, who shows his piano skills as well as his synthesizer skills quite well. Although it drags a bit, I really like this solo, it's better than the one on Budokan. The third disc is my favorite of this collection, it's where the group pulls out all the stops. Beginning with A Mind Beside Itself in its entirety (indexed as individual tracks, though), the group stomps and performs this song quite well, especially the group performance of The Silent Man at the End, with a nice piano/guitar trade-off solo.

Learning to Live also sees some improvements, with some great reggae style guitar from Petrucci in the middle as well as some great clean guitar work from him throughout. I actually prefer this version of the song to the studio counterpart, it's more dynamic and more enjoyable, in my opinion. The third disc is ended with an all out version of A Change of Seasons. Petrucci on this track is only one word: superb. The rest of the group is spectacular, especially during The Darkest of Winters instrumental section, where Myung performs the Major League Baseball "CHARGE!", Petrucci offers the Simpsons theme song, and Rudess offers a great ragtime piano ditty that totally surpasses Sherinian's studio ditty. It ends the concert in a grandiose and superb fashion and the group thanks the fans for the support throughout the entire show, and LaBrie jokes, "Sorry about the short set".

In the end, this is my favorite Dream Theater live album and it may be one of my favorite live albums of all time. It's right up there with Zappa in New York, Curtain Call, and Different Stages, in my opinion. I recommend this to all fans of live albums and progressive metal in general. 5/5.

At its time of release in 1999, Metropolis Pt2: Scenes From a Memory was not just Dream Theater's Crowning glory but prog metals as well and the subsequent world tour culminated in this, the live performance of the entire concept album, plus the first ever performance of A Change of Seasons in its entirety, at New York's Roseland Ballroom. The Performance is, quite simply, outstanding. I'll get to the point, the set-list is excellent, with Scenes From a Memory, A Mind Besides Itself (Erotomania, Voices and The Silent Man), A Change of Season and Learning to Live all featuring prominently, and taking up most of he album at that. It also offers one of those rare things, a meddly that works with Caught in a Web and New Millennium spliced together to create a single song. I admire the band for the way that they don't always stick to playing the original songs not for note, with many of the pieces extended, most notably Home, Finally Free and Learning to Live whilst some others, particularly The Mirror, have been slightly re-written, some of this to take in Jordan Rudess's very different playing style to either Kevin Moore or Derek Sherinian, and in part to make some parts work better in a live setting. The only real let downs on here are LaBrie's voice, this live album was recorded a few years before he reached his peak and so he tends to overstretch himself sometimes, and more importantly the sound of Myung's bass. Its perfectly audible and very distinct but it has a very dirty sound to it, particularly after they finish performing Scenes... on the second disc, this sound actually only really suits The Mirror from Metropolis Part 1 onwards. I may seem to be making it out that the bass sound is horrible when its not, but it doesn't quite fit into the clean sounds of the others and his bass sounds much better on Live at Budokan. A must have live album none the less.

I have read a full page of reviews to DT live triple album there. I even tryied to listen this album one more time ( sorry, finished after first CD).

What to say? How I can understand, it should be the best DT album ever ( only it has average 5 stars there). Ok , I heard "Awake" before, so I can more or less imagine , what the music of DT is.

Now a little bit about myself, may be it will help you understand better my opinion. I started my love to music around 30 yrs ago, with just first stereo in our home. I was hypnotised with stereo sound and liked to listen everything what had good stereo effects. In few years I found rock music, starting with Slades,Deep Purple and Rainbow again. Next step was Styx and Kansas. After I got first Rush album, I understood, that I like art-rock. ( It doesn't mean that it was only music I liked: punk, new-vawe, new romantics, heavy metal, etc. all was in my collection). Traveling through time, I found jazz-rock, later avant-rock and jazz as well. Later return back to blues and southern rock roots.

So, for today, I like plenty of styles, and know many things from musical history. Sometimes it's good, sometimes - maybe not too much.

So, I came to DT music from the backdoor : Liquid Tension Experiment, than Petrucci collaborations, than - Portnoy. At least the day has come and I decided to listen their mother-group, Dream Theater.

What did I found? Quite professional, full of energy, with some melodies prog-metal. Even more: good quality recording in that live album, long compositions (OK , 3 CD format is too long for any concert), nice guitar and keys solos. In general, not bad at all.

Was I impressed? Not too much. All that I heard hundred times during last twenty years, and quite often in more original versions. So, is it enough in the beginning of XXI -st century just to be a highly trained musician, to know how to play long solos/compositions with multi- textured sound, to learn some heavy metal clishes from eighties - and you are heavy-prog star?

Please, understand me right - the music is good enough for me. Not too many competitors can play it at the same level right now. But - where is new experiments, ideas, where IS PROGRESIVE THERE?

What PROGRESIVE is in playing of 20-th years old musical schemes, even at high technical level? How many ORIGINAL songs/compositions of this three CD set you can remember and name after total listening?

Can anyone number me new sounds, ideas, something new (progresive) this group bring to prog-rock? If no, so why do we name it PROGRESIVE? I absolutely agree, that with that music could be a prog-star in early eighties ( when Rush turned off to more synth-sound). But now? OK, it's a pleasant listening, good collection of old refreshed tricks and at high level of musical technique. And?

Some can think I don't like heavy music. No! I can find plenty of real progressivity in newest Metallica, Opeth or Mars Volta albums. But Dream Theatre - vintage?

Caught in a New Millennium

For their last performance of SCENES FROM A MEMORY album, they decided to record the presentation. Now, this is the first time Dream Theater publish a complete concert without outtakes. This means, you get the complete show, with the flaws, with some sloppy parts but with all the essence of them playing their amazing music live. It's without a doubt, their very best official live album ever.

The complete METROPOLIS Pt_2 is the focus, of course, and they gave it new life here. The capacity of the band with their then brand new keyboard player was impressive. But after the complete piece played, what was next to maintain the level of quality. CD2 have a complete non-stop performance of some back catalogue highlights: METROPOLIS Pt_1, THE MIRROR, the little somekind of meddley JUST LET ME BREATH-ACID RAIN-CAUGHT IN A NEW MILLENNIUM and the ANOTHER DAY, in a wonderful performance.

If it wasn't enough, the band still played A MIND BESIDE ITSELF entirely, then LEARNING TO LIVE and A CHANGE OF SEASON. This is completely their definite material. All this songs played at the best, with an energetic performance that really shows the band at the peak of their game.

One weak point is James Labrie vocals, which sings fine but sometimes is evident he didn't reach the high notes and by the end of the show his voice is completely tired. I don't see any problem with that, the music he's singing is very demanding and he is one of those singers who still get to make something decent out of the tough challenge of singing three hours each night.

While this production lack of the high quality of sound of later releases, this is the essential album for those who want to hear DT live. For new fans, I recommend SCORE, but for anyone else, for hearing a regular show of them with their very best interpretation, this is the album to peak. Impressive is the word I'm searching for. 5 stars.

Being currently ranked as the number one Live Albums of All-Time on Prog Archives there's really no denying that Live Scenes From New York is one great live album with some really wicked sound!

Running for more than 3 hours, this massive recording features the entire performance of Scenes From A Memory, in one take, followed by a lengthy best-of performance from the last few years. The '90s gave us the rise of Dream Theater as a band and they definitely made sure of making the best possible live compilation that would fuse together all the great moments that the they had accumulated during that time. If you think that you've heard everything on the studio recording of Scenes From A Memory then I would like you to reconsider this though by giving this live take a shot. Not only does this performance give us the most passionate version of the band's masterpiece but the sound quality of the live recording expands the dimension of the epic by giving John Myung's bass a well defined layer of its own plus many other great improvements all around.

After Scenes From A Memory we get a short introduction to Liquid Tension Experiment with Acid Rain, awesome version of A Change Of Seasons, that actually sound better than the EP-recording, and the entire take of A Mind Beside Itself-suite, to name a few! The only real problem I see with the recording is that 3 hours of music has never been easy for me to consume outside of the actual Dream Theater live performances. I honestly can't remember a single time where I didn't switch off the album after hearing the performance of Scenes From A Memory in order to take a break. I can imagine that the hardcore fans shouldn't have a problem to consume this much music in one take, but I never applied for that position in the Dream Theater community. Instead, I'm trying to see this issue from a much more general point of view. Let's not forget that lengthy jams lead to a lot of unnecessary soloing and there are quite a few of those moments featured here.

If you're new to Dream Theater or just never bothered with this release then I highly recommend to give Live Scenes From New York a go as soon as possible. Not only does this live performance improve on many of the previous studio takes but you'll also be able to experience/revisit the passion that each Dream Theater live performance incorporates!

***** star songs: Overture 1928 (3:32) Strange Déjà Vu (5:03) Fatal Tragedy (6:22) Home (13:21) The Dance Of Eternity (6:25) One Last Time (4:12) Finally Free (10:59) Acid Rain (2:35) Voices (9:45) A Change Of Seasons (24:33)

**** star songs: Regression (2:46) Through My Words (1:42) Beyond This Live (11:17) Through Her Eyes (6:17) The Spirit Carries On (7:40) Metropolis Part 1 (10:37) The Mirror (8:15) Another Day (5:13) Eurotomania (7:22) The Silent Man (5:09) Learning To Live (14:02)

*** star songs: John & Theresa Solo Spot (3:17) Just Let Me Breathe (4:03) Caught In A New Millennium (6:22) Jordan Rudess Keyboard Solo (6:40)

The perfect live album.

Dream Theater has always been known for their live releases. They've always been known for their strong live performances. They've also always been known for their damn long shows. These three traits have all been consolidated into one, single, 3 disc album of pure Dream Theater bliss. These album the second part of a double hitter of perfection, in my opinion. After their absolute best studio album (and in my opinion of of the best studio albums ever), Scenes from a Memory, they come out with the corresponding perfect live album. The album is essentially a two act show. Act I is the entire run through of Scenes from a Memory. The band even hired actors to add a theatrical feel to the show. Act II is an entirely different 2 hour long set, comprised of some of the band's best compositions, from A Mind Beside Itself to A Change of Seasons. The entire 3 discs are over 3 hours long, and at the end of A Change of Seasons, LaBrie makes the sarcastic statement "Sorry about the short set!" which procures some laughter from the crowd.

The music is impeccable. The band plays flawlessly, even after 3 hours of ripping away skillfully at their instruments. Track after track of perfect music that doesn't get old is quite the feat, and Dream Theater has pulled it off perfectly. Being the number one (two now, only outplaced by Transatlantic's Whirld Tour, which Mike Portnoy is also a member of) live album on all of PA is quite the accomplishment, and they have pulled it off with no stress and just the pure joy of playing the music that they love. 5+ stars.

The Metropolis Tour was Dream Theater at the peak of their powers and it is captured here in high quality glory. All of the classic Dream Theater tracks that made up the "Scenes From a Memory" masterpiece are here and played with extraordinary skill, even at times surpassing the original studio album. It is rewarding to hear the earlier material of the band and the best from the earlier albums is played during the set. All of the band members are passionate, energetic and are at their best.

LaBrie is crystal clear on high register vocals throughout and is brilliant on tracks such as Through Her Eyes, The Spirit Carries On, and Caught In A New Millennium. Rudess is an incredible keyboardist and has a showcase to spring from with excellent tracks such as Home and Metropolis part 1 as well as a 6:40 keyboard solo with inventive genius. Petrucci's lead guitar is exceptional and he is unbelievable on compositions such as the epic Beyond This Live, The Dance Of Eternity and blockbuster time change virtuoso Learning To Live. Of course the bass of Myung is always outstanding and Portnoy's drumming is machine like, keeping the odd rhythmic patterns consistent and complex. Listen to the drumming on The Mirror or the mammoth 22 minute A Mind Beside Itself. The band are a force to be reckoned with and maintain a progressive edge with metal blasts and ambient atmospheres.

One of the real surprises is to hear the live performance of A Change Of Seasons clocking 24:33. It is even better than the studio album version. The crowd roar at the end of these epics and one may imagine standing ovations as the natural response to such virtuoso playing. The intricate time sig changes and instrumentation throughout is outstanding. They have never sounded better live. The bonus videos of Another Day and Jordan Rudess Keyboard Solo are a nice embellishment though it is more of a tease for those who cannot get hold of the whole concert. The packaging is great with gatefold shot of the band and a rather colourful booklet with band pictures and notes.

The cover is a montage of the band unless you were lucky enough to get hold of the earlier rarer cover design that has since been banned. It depicted New York City on fire. Nothing wrong with that though when the Twin Towers were seen up in flames it certainly raised some eyebrows and was seen as offensive to the real disaster of the 9/11 WTC tragedy. It eerily looks too close to what actually happened and although was a coincidence, it had to be pulled from the shops. I remember this cover causing quite a controversy as it was released just prior to the 9/11 events. The band had to replace the image with a band image.

Overall this is the best Live record of Dream Theater, with some of their most celebrated material. It is brilliant prog metal that lasts for over 3 hours. It also can be picked up for a reasonable price these days, mine cost about $20, and that is not a bad offer for 3 CDs of Dream Theater's greatest songs.

Before you even listen to the music, Live Scenes From New York stands out in the Dream Theater discography for two reasons. The first is that it had the miserably bad luck to be released on 9/11, with album art that showed the New York skyline (including the Twin Towers) aflame. That part wasn't in the band's control.

What was under the band's control was the truly epic length of the show captured here - an August 2000 performance on the Scenes From a Memory tour, taking in the entirety of that album, plus of course Metropolis part 1, plus a clutch of shorter songs, plus the A Mind Beside Itself, Learning To Live, and A Change of Seasons epics to round things off. Once In a Livetime was already a pretty long live album, but spread over 3 CDs this is over three hours of Dream Theater music.

It was a legendarily gruelling show to perform - it's infamously the show that Mike Portnoy collapsed backstage after, and you can absolutely understand why. One might consider that the band would have been well-advised to trim back their show lengths after this - scary incidents like Mike's collapse aside, the risk of this sort of thing is that it becomes as much of an endurance test to listen to as it is to peform. Whilst many in showbiz follow the adage of "leave 'em wanting more", Dream Theater have showed a long-standing commitment to excess, and epic live releases like this are the product of that.

In this case, though, they pull it off, largely on the strength of the material. Scenes From a Memory is a very strong release in its own right, and despite being even longer here (due to the additional improvisations and solos), it absolutely breezes past. The three epics that take up the third disc are among Dream Theater's best works too, and in between you get a great clutch of songs, both more obvious picks (you had to expect Metropolis Pt. 1 in the running order, after all) and some slightly deeper dives, including some borrowings from Liquid Tension Experiment.

Of course, just because you have an embarrassment of riches to hand doesn't mean it automatically works out for the best, but the band are by and large on top of their form here. James LaBrie might be the weak link - not that he's necessarily bad, he's clearly recovered somewhat from the vocal cord-ravagingly horrible bout of food poisoning which damaged his voice so badly and which he was still showing the after-effects of on Once In a Livetime, but there are still moments when he seems to be struggling slightly. Still, help is at hand in the form of Theresa Thomason, perhaps the unsung hero of Scenes From a Memory, whose soaring vocals at crucial point is a big help.

And it's possible to overstate the issues with LaBrie's vocals - he's doing a grand job here, with emotional performances which to my ears compete well with the studio originals. It's just that with his instrument still a little on the mend, he can't push it to the technical limit to the extent that his bandmates do. At least there's plenty of long instrumental breaks to allow James to pace himself - and what mighty performances they are, combining the technical ability which most people know Dream Theater for with a level of emotional resonance and dramatic force which people don't often give them credit for.

As a result, Live Scenes From New York is pretty much your one-stop shop for the absolute cream of Dream Theater's 1990s material, and as a result is an absolute landmark of prog metal.