METROPOLIS 2000: SCENES FROM NEW YORK

Great Show of Fantastic Concept Album!

It's a quintessential live video that every home should have a copy! It would be better if you have owned the CD of the studio album "Scenes From A Memory" as you can enjoy this DVD beyond your ears and eyes: your mind and heart. Especially if you happen to know the story this album is all about (you can visit DTFAQ.com for this purpose, I think). Basically, I just want to say: get prepared before watching this DVD. Well, I know that most of you who live in developed countries you might have had a chance to see the boys perform this album "alive". But for the people like me who live in "rest of the world" country - it's very hard to have a chance to see them in concert. So, live DVD is the only way for us to watch them alive. Too bad. BTW, for those of you who are new to the band, watching this DVD is a treat because it's basically a great rock concert. You can watch how skillful these boys perform their repertoires on stage!

When I reviewed the studio album of "Scenes" in this site, I mentioned that the album deserves FIVE BIG STAR for following reasons: 1. songwriting 2. story telling 3. structural integrity and variety of tempo 4. musicianship 5. production. It's basically this album is excellent by any musical yardstick. But for this DVD I have to comment also that their performance on stage is wonderful as well. The only little comment that I can consider as the downside of this show is the audio quality that does not seem excellent to my ears. For those of you that really audiophile, you might be disappointed with this substandard quality. It's not too bad but it's not really satisfying. Luckily, I still consider this audio quality as "acceptable" - so it's not a major issue, basically.

On performance, all musicians perform their job flawlessly, I would think. Mike Portnoy is probably the most attractive one on stage with his powerful energy and sustainable stamina. John Myung is quiet but plays his bass skillfully. Jordan Rudess produces marvelous sounds wonderfully with his small and simple box. John Petrucci? Yeah .. he is one of the greatest prog met guitarist the world has. James LaBrie also performs his best on stage. All in all, it's a great show! I especially enjoy when the band plays "Home" and "The Dance of Eternity". My favorite "Finally Free" is also performed excellently!

Overall, it's highly recommended! Overall rating is 4.9 out of 5 stars (I just want to give 0.1 space for "not so excellent" sound quality). Keep on progging!

Yours progressively,

GW - Indonesia.

One of the best live shows i have ever seen. Highly recommened along with the soundtrack live 3 disc album. You get a great insight to the story of Scenes from a Memory here, as you get to see the visuals as the story goes along, with real actors telling the story of the album, plus there is some amazing commentaries from the band as we go along. Highlights include Mike telling the story of how he got asked to leave the school when he went to a parents evening or something at his sons school, because he was wearing a tshirt with heavy metal images on, the band pick apart their tracks, saying where they got their influences from (Rush and Tool are ones i remember) and also Mike and JP tell you what's going on in the story, and tell you what actually happens at the end!

Musically this is pretty much perfect, you get to see a classically trained metal band perform at their best, and it sounds even better than the studio albums as they have added bits in and pretty much perfected it, including the incredible John and Theresa solo spot before Through Her Eyes. It is amazing to see the headbanging, the emotion, the reactions of the crowd, the spectacular visuals as well as the band themselves. John Myung is a monster on the bass, Jordan works the keys with passion and John Petrucci looks really into it all, though sometimes he pulls a few funny faces. Mike is insane on the drums, and when they play "A Change of Seasons" he randomly has a change of costume and comes on stage wearing a dressing gown!

You get everything here, it is well worth the cost of the DVD. A flawless live show and some great special features. The commentary is amazing as well as some behind the scenes footage of how they made the studio album. A masterpiece!

Last week I was in one of my favorite record shops and noticed that there was a large selection of mid-priced DVD's. Due to the cascades of euphoric reviews about Dream Theater I decided to buy this DVD. This in order to give them a final chance because until the moment of buying this DVD I couldn't listen to DT from more than 15 minutes! Here is my final analysis from this highly acclaimed prog metal legend on Prog Archives.

Most of their music is 'adrenalin pushing' prog metal, very bombastic and virtuosic featuring excellent musicianship, exciting interplay and great soli on guitar and keyboards. On "Overture" I'm delighted about the spectacular, pitchbend-driven synthesizer soli, "The dance of eternity" delivers a stunning sitar-sound on keyboards, along splendid wah-wah metal guitar and the classical orchestrations on "Finally free" are wonderful. But listening and watching this DVD I still have problems with the overwhelming bombastic, very technically based prog metal sound from DT. I can imagine that lots of progheads love this music but I miss emotion and I miss elaborate compositional skills, after 15 to 30 minutes I still can't bear this 'technical tornado'. And I start to ponder why DT is so extensively reviewed: are they pleasant mainstream, do so many progheads want to be impressed by technical skills or is prog metal simply the future? For me DT is a good and entertaining band but I prefer more emotion and more variety.

Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York

A great live DVD from amazing studio album, which also recognized as one of the best progressive metal albums. Just a little information, the DVD is a live concert of Dream Theater fifth studio album and the DVD was released in 2001. The studio album itself was released in 1999 and was Jordan Rudess (keyboards)'s debut album with Dream Theater.

The best part of the DVD probably is the concept behind it. As we know, Metropolis Pt.2, Scenes From A Memory is a concept album and has a story behind it. This situation somehow made Mike Portnoy created an amazing concept for the DVD that it has some movie elements besides a rock metal concert. For those of you who haven't known the story behind Scenes From A Memory, here is the general story. The story is situated in 1928 with the main characters, Nicholas, Victoria Page, Senator Edward Baynes and Julian Baynes (yes, they are brothers). The story started when Nicholas was in a subconscious mind, imagined Victoria and her murder. Once Nicholas felt about this feeling, there is no turning back for him, he had to solve Victoria's death. Later, he found out that there was a love affair between Victoria, Ed and Julian. This love affair then leads to Victoria and Julian's death. You can read the full story on my Scenes From A Memory review.

About their performances, its no doubt, great playing, amazing techniques and skills, also good stamina. However, seems like Mike Portnoy was very enthusiastic that he collapsed and passes out due to over-exhaustion.

Main Concert - The main concert was the real Scenes From A Memory songs, with some changes of course. Same like the one on the album, the story started with The Hypnotherapist's calming Nicholas's mind and told him to go to his subconscious mind. I consider this part is a bit tricky for John Petrucci and Kent Broadhurst (The Hypnotherapist) since they had to make sure the timing is absolutely perfect, and they've done it very well. The "movie concept" I told you started when the song "Through My Words" kicks off. Here you can see Victoria (Siri Vilboel)'s face. Throughout the DVD, there are lots of psychedelic's and camera effects. Personally I don't really like these effects since I consider it's a bit too much. There other difference with the studio album is the song "Through Her Eyes". At the concert, there was an extended intro of Through Her Eyes, which called "John & Theresa Solo Spot". Theresa Thomason also took part in the making of Scenes From A Memory. Also, in Through Her Eyes, there was an extended drum and guitar section, which very different on the studio album. So the "original" drum part was a drum machine, but then Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci decided to have an extended part since the crew had to set the stage for the next song. Probably the best song and the best performance was "The Spirit Carries On", and honestly, this is one of the songs that gave me a chill. They've had a group of gospel choir to add a background vocal for The Spirit Carries On, and yes, along with Theresa Thomason. So just imagine, a truly great beautiful song, amazing solo with deep feeling, even better lyrics with gospel choir, who won't get a chill? Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci also said that they had a chill at this stage. Another good this was the last scene and the closing scene, which very similar like the one on the studio album. Here you can see when Ed (Michael Bentholm) killed Julian (Kasper V. Kristensen) and Victoria, continued with the scene where The Hypnotherapist, which is Ed's reincarnation killed Nicholas (Sune L. Jensen).

Bonus Tracks - There are some bonus tracks on the DVD, which are "A Mind Behind Itself" ("Erotomania", "Voices" and "The Silent Man"), "Learning To Live" and the 25 minutes of epic, "A Change Of Season".

Extras - Probably the best thing is the full length commentary track by all members, however, don't expect to hear lots of John Myung's voice : ) You can really figure out what kind of men Dream Theater's personnel are. They were very funny and commented about each other's performance, good and bad things. They were also clearly explained the full story behind the studio album and while they played the songs, we can actually feel the beautifulness of the songs. The other part of the extras is the "behind the scenes", which was divided into five: The crew, band, fans, rehearsals and the show. Last but not least is the photo gallery which Mike Portnoy has taken throughout the "journey".

In the end, five huge stars for a great live DVD. Well actually its 4.8 stars since I don't really enjoy the psychedelic and camera effects. For those of you who have owned the original studio album, I believe you will enjoy this DVD which really complements the album itself.

Keep On Proggin' In The Free World!!! Timur Imam Nugroho

Following the wake of their most ambitious album Scenes from a Memory, Dream Theater embarked on a world tour that would see them playing many places more than once, and this show, performed at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, is one of those cases. It was the last show for the tour, and the group wanted to do something special to show how much they appreciate the support, so what did they do? They recorded a 3+ hour show for a cd and dvd set, titled Live Scenes From New York and Metropolis 2000: Scenes from New York. The live cd for it is one of the best live albums I've ever heard, in which they surpass many of their songs with brilliant musicianship and live prowess, but this dvd doesn't include the entire show, it cuts out the middle section and only keeps Scenes From a Memory (played in its entirety) and the finale of the show (which is the best part of this set). The video quality isn't great, it feels amateurish in points and it doesn't have a professional feel to it, but the audio for it makes up for it with a well balanced feel to it.

The first part of the set is the entire live rendition of Scenes from a Memory. It's played very well and the group add and improve parts here and there (Fatal Tragedy for instance). Now, you might think that this is a good thing, but it actually isn't the best part of the video. They try to hard to forcefeed you the story of the album and there is too much concept footage as well as "videodelic effects" that deter the viewer from a truly great experience. It is here where the set feels amateurish, with random video effects thrown in many places (I understand why, though, because Portnoy wanted to try and fit in all that was going on into the screen at once) that really throw off the mood of the video. The audio commentary here is superb and the group offer a lot of insight into the making of the album, as well as what is exactly going on, not to mention they bring up many amusing anecdotes and funny bits of info (such as the Jordan Rudess action figure). I often find myself listening to the commentary more than the actual Scenes from a Memory show itself, I get more out of it that way than with the commentary off.

The second set of video footage performed is probably one of the great sequences of Dream Theater tracks ever. First up is A Mind Beside Itself in its entirety. You'll find no crazy concept footage, no random effects, just a straight up performance of the group. Petrucci rips it up on this song, surpassing the studio album in terms of raw sound and power, same goes with the rest of the group. After the closing notes of The Silent Man, Learning to Live is played. This song gets a nice extended section with has a reggae feel to it and is a spot for Rudess to show off his skills. Really great rendition. The finale is A Change of Seasons in its entirety. I find this version of the song to surpass the studio version and then some, Petrucci rocks on this track, same goes with the rest of the band, again. But even after this set of footage there is still more on this disc. There are some behind the scenes documentaries that have the music from the show that wasn't included with the extra footage in the background, as well as a photo gallery of their entire American leg of the tour.

In the end, Metropolis 2000: Scenes From a Memory is a terrific live album, but I'm not terribly impressed with the dvd. The Scenes from a Memory footage is marred by random video effects and an over abundance of concept footage, but the same audio prowess is still there. The extra footage is what really saves this dvd from being a total disaster, but the missing second set after Scenes before A Mind Beside Itself really hurts the overall score of this set. It's not a bad dvd in the least bit, it's just that Dream Theater could have done better, and they did with Budokan. 4/5.

I was more than a bit curious to see if Dream Theater could actually play this live. Well after watching this DVD my question was answered! You have over three hours of live footage which includes the entire "Scenes from a memory" with an extended guitar solo by Petrucci (accompanied by Theresa Thomason on vocals) To actually watch this band live is a real treat. For someone who is new to Dream Theater this is the perfect place to start. The inserted clips to the story line enhance the all round effect of the "reincarnation" story.

On this DVD you also get probably the best version of "A change of seasons" that they have done. Fantastic musicians, fantastic live footage, fantastic DVD!

Seeing is believing!

This worthy live DVD showcases Dream Theatre performing their finest work in tip-top form. Featuring the entirety of "Metropolis II", we're given outstanding performances and a good impression of what the band's stage show is like (at this point in time anyway). The group sounds incredible, with the album's complexity being demonstrated with lightning dexterity by all members. Seeing them play what is probably going to be their best songs is a truely enjoyable sight, and waching their faux rock-star personas retreat into cool, calculating, deliberateness during the album's intense instrumentals is oddly satisfying. The production is fair, and the stage show is complemented by a rather silly video which adds a bit of tongue-in-cheek camp. A guest vocalist performs some of "Victoria's" parts, lending a wonderful touch to the overall effect. The DVD extras are slim but entertaining. All in all, a good live purchase for fans of DT at their peak, limited though by its emphasis on "Metropolis 2".

Setlist 2 Performances 5 Energy 4 Live Experience 3

Dream Theater - Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York 4 stars

There are very little mistakes on this DVD and then I'll point out why it is an excellent addition to any prog-metal collection. First, is the master volume. For some reason, this needs to be twice as loud as any other DVD I own to even make it out, including movie and music DVD's. It needs to be considerably loud and ordinary TV set with built in speakers will not suffice and thus diminish the sound quality of the performance. This is definitely something to consider when purchasing any DVD. Secondly, there is a little problem with the performance. Dream Theater does not really do anything outside of what you would hear on the album, the stage presence and excitement of performing is completely gone, but perhaps acceptable because the music is more challenging then it previously has been. Jordan Rudess on this DVD does however bring some presence. Lastly, is the vocal work of LaBrie. While not terrible, he did mess up on the moments where he was supposed to shine. This can be seen on the bonus track 'Learning to Live'.

Scenes From A Memory: The album was played in its entirety from start to finish. There were no mistakes and the entire performance of the album was spot-on on for everybody except LaBrie in a very few moments. There is also a decent amount of visuals to explain the nicely thought out concept of the album. They're a bit low-budget but what can you expect from a prog band? The camera angles are also pretty nice too, if you can't really picture what they are doing when you listen to the album, you will get a great idea on the DVD.

Bonus Material: This is basically the reason for the high rating, they picked a great second set. From the Awake album we get the 'Mind Beside Itself' suite which includes the instrumental 'Erotomania', 'Voices' and ''The Silent Man'. 'Learning to Live' is a classic from Images and Words and a masterpiece in itself. The act is closed with their most progressive song in their library, the 23 minute 'A Change of Seasons'. These were also preformed very nicely, with Portnoy messing up on his drum solo on 'Erotomania' (!!!) and James Labrie decides to go down an octave on 'Learning To Live', which left me very disappointed.

In conclusion, you are going to get exactly what you read. Studio quality versions of 'Scenes From A Memory', 'Erotomania', 'Voices', 'The Silent Man', 'Learning to Live' and 'A Change of Seasons'. No five star because the lack of excitement, stage presence and no hooks or twists. Even with these minor qualms, Dream Theater shows that they are one of the best live acts around today.

Of the three live DVDs I've now watched of DT this one impressed me the least. It is nice for fans of the Metropolis album to get to see it performed live but as a casual fan I much preferred seeing many different albums covered as they did on Score. This show was also far more annoying from the visual perspective. Lots of cheesy graphics and heart attack editing with split screens, tri-screen, quad-screen. Some pretty laughable video clips were used to narrate the story, complete with bad acting and of course the spinning newspaper headlines coming at you flashing "Young Girl Killed!!" The picture and sound quality were significantly weaker than on Score as well. The lighting is not the best which hinders the view a bit. The upside of course is the instrumental performances. Regardless of my view of the material I can enjoy watching these guys play live and add on the third star for that. Petrucci and Portnoy are out of this world on some of these tracks with incredibly powerful playing. Myung is as well when I'm able to hear him. Labrie is usually a problem for me to get past with his presence and this was no exception, but I've learned to tune him out for the most part and enjoy the band. A mixed bag from my point of view. Fans will love it, but I'd recommend casual fans and newcomers check out Score first for a better overview and much better production quality. This is a decent live DVD purchase but by no means an exceptional one when compared to things like Be or Arriving Somewhere.

I was amazed by the quantity of material you can get in just one DVD! One thing is for sure , Live Scenes from a Memory does have lasting appeal. It includes the whole SFAM album and really worthy bonus material. I have to be honest with this one , I prefer the Live at Budokan since it's really well produced but LSFAM is much cheaper and a much better deal if you don't have enough money to spend.

The only flaw I can find as regards DT's performance are LaBrie's vocals but otherwise it sounds exactly like the record. I must say that what makes this DVD valuable is the bonus material: You have awesome version of some DT favourites of old like A man beside Itself , Change of seasons and Learning to live plus a Behind the Scenes documentary and a photo gallery. And as if it weren't enough you have the whole SFAM show commented by them where the band explains the story behind the album and some other musical facts.

The only aspect of this DVD that prevents me from giving a 5 stars rating are some of the clips the band used to introduce the story to the audience. They are somewhat dated ( such as the psychedelic effects and split screens). Moreover , the acting of those involved on it seems pretty amateurish. Otherwise , I find Metropolis 2000 to be a very good purchase for anyone interested in DT's live shows.

Their Peak... surely...!!!!

This should have been called "Once in a Livetime" cause this is it... I own every single DVD from them, and as each one has it's own identity and concept, this is their best performance for sure... Yes, some could say Score is better, yes, Labrie sings better there and the symphonic orquesthra is amazing... but the life on the performance is right here... just listen to "The Spirit carries on" You can feel the emotion, the exciment of the crowd... over 3 hours of pure excitment... just unmatchable...

I forgot about this DVD for months... but I pick it up a few days ago and I really end so excited about it... I forgot how good it was... really... This is the fair evocation of their Masterpiece... The performance is quite well... no mistakes... perfection in everything they play -well, Labrie didn't made it perfect, but at least way much better that "5 Years in a LIVEtime"- the only thing that really is not that great is the footage they use... seems a little low budget but that's don't make any difference... if you like prog metal, this is the peak of it... for sure.... As Mike Portnoy was the director, he knew perfectly which thing the fans wanted to see... so you will be satisfy seeing how the 5 of them play everything... so it's great... and you can see also that Rudess can play all that crazy stuff using just one keyboard... God, I miss those days... I don't like all his fancy stuff that he use now.. but then... This is it... go now... buy it... and enjoy... this is really the DVD you should have from them... surely... no regrets...!!!