AN EVENING WITH JOHN PETRUCCI AND JORDAN RUDESS

This album absolutely dominates any other live album I've listened to. Most of this album was written before the show, but there are a few parts in every song that are complete improv, and it's almost impossible to discern them from the studio parts. There are no extended solos, no overly technical sections, no hardcore metal riffs. Just an hour of the most beautiful music I've ever heard. This album alone has convinced me that Rudess is clearly one of (if not THE) best piano players of all time, and makes an extremely convincing argument for Petrucci to be placed among some of the guitar gods.

Something I cannot stress enough about this album is the fact that it seemlessly transitions between multiple styles without a single weak link. Although both players are certainly capable of playing fast (as displayed in Furia Taurina and Bite of the Mosquito), there are times when they slow down to create beautiful rhythms. Not only are these transitions between speeds wonderful, but the transition between acoustic/electric guitars are smooth and wonderfully written. When I heard Petrucci switch from Acoustic to Electric after Furia Taurina I thought to myself, "Oh god, here we go..." yet he pulls it off without any display of virtuoso tendencies or machoman solos. Rudess is on a piano for the entire album, and I've always been more of a fan of his piano work (Biaxident and Liquid Dreams) than his keyboard work, and this masterpiece shows why. For a player like Rudess, who seems to excel at playing the keyboard as though it's a guitar, the piano should feel almost limiting to the listener's ears, yet Rudess pulls it off flawlessly.

Note: this is one of maybe 5 or 6 albums I'd give 6 stars to if I could; not only is it necessary to own in a collection of prog rock, it's an album that I think everyone should be chained to a desk and be forced to listen to at some point in their life.

"Furia Taurina," "Black Ice," "Fife and Drum," and "State of Grace" are my favorite tracks on the album. Bite of the Mosquito is lol-worthy because it comes from nowhere; an album full of live, beautiful work concluded by a song where JP and JR play about 30,000 notes in 1:53 and create a horrifyingly fast yet contagious sound. Hilarious!

Beautiful work, bravo gentlemen!