Dream Theater-Seattle 2/27/25

Dream Theater is currently out on their 40th Anniversary Tour, as well they just had a new album release early in the month. Parasomnia tour sounds like will start later this year, which James LaBrie said they will be playing it in full.

This tour features almost all previous albums, two songs were played from the new album. The show is in two sets with a 15min intermission. The setlist is very heavy to Scenes From A Memory, which is fine by me, as well they are rotating two different setlists. We got the setlist I was hoping for, hearing Dark Eternal Night over Constant Motion was nice and as well getting Home in the encore set.

Biggest question, Labrie's voice??? Well, it sounded better than some of the earlier YT videos of this tour and I also think he is still suffering from being ill (cold I assume) that caused them to cancel the show in Atlanta I think. Either way his biggest issue is annunciating words, they tend to sound all jumbled together, that was my wife's biggest issue is she could not understand what he was singing, lyrically. James also (for me) has never hit the mark as being a good frontman on stage, it seems like a struggle for him, Portnoy is a much more natural behaving frontman. 

Regarding Portnoy, he was on fire, extremely relaxed, very engaging with the crowd and for sure not the Portnoy of 20 years ago. Age has calmed him down, he was smiling a lot more than I remember in previous shows we've seen him including with Neal Morse and Transatlantic. Very glad to see him back!

Petrucci was his normal self, creating great riffs and they came across real well last night. Visually I wish he'd dump that beard .

Jordan Rudess, not a big fan although last night he did just fine, not too much w**king on the synths but his playing was more subdued than what I remember in previous shows.

And the normal with Myung....He's so low in the mix, honestly if he was not playing not sure it would matter much. He had his spotlight moments with his intro to Panic Attack, but in general the bass playing in DT is more like the traditional metal vs what you hear in Porcupine Tree or The Pineapple Thief. Those live shows feature a good dose of sub bass from the players like Jon Sykes, Colin Edwin or Nick Beggs.

Again, for me the setlist made this show borderline excellent as well overall the performances were spot on, the show was well produced as well.

My spousal unit was able to get the setlist sheet from Myung's area after the show, she was trying to get a drum stick but Portnoy simply dropped his sticks behind him as the show finished.

Very glad to have seen them.......

R u kidding, dinner and a concert with the spousal unit.........We had a great time. Plus we met Brandon Toews from Drumeo, he was sitting next to us at dinner. We watch his YT channel often.