Dream Theater

Dream Theater really don't have "casual" fans. The closest thing to casual is people who dropped off after Train of Thought. But DT are always good about doing shows that cover every era.
 
Indeed, I like FII a lot and it definitely breaks the "classic" feel a bit. Yeah, it's sonically colourful, it's overlong, it should have Knife instead of ... (fill in for yourself, lately I've been thinking I wouldn't throw out anything, instead I'd utilise the double CD method, because it really helps - if the CDs are a bit shorter than the norm, it doesn't wear you out, you have a break in the middle and you get more music to the fans - I'm talking about Maiden and Metallica and their last releases, where the double format helped. In fact, it helped with SDOIT also.

Maybe if I weren't following the band's Facebook, I would be less concerned with the whole "publicity stunt" angle. And I'm not talking about all those "Bring back Portnooooy" comments. But - merely from what has been thrown into my news feed - ovbiously The Astonishing has not been as successful as they hoped (I'm not talking about commercial performance, but more about the overall reception and word of mouth etc) and at first they couldn't let it go - their FB page has thrown around videos of fans winning tickets and being onstage and so on, they kept talking about how amazing the album was yet the ticket sales were progressively worse and now they come with this tour.

I can't even properly express why, maybe I don't even really know myself, but something rubbed me off the wrong way lately with the band and I have not been in a DT mood lately. With James endorsing clothes, Jordan fucking around with his iPads all the time, Petrucci fucking up the last album yet talking about a book and with that last "burnt-out" interview by MM, I feel weird about the band right now. And believe me, I was (and probably still am) a huge fan, it's just I'm currently in the trough now.
 
The thing is he was very vocal about them never playing Kevin songs like SDV for those reasons. But as soon as he left the band everyone else said that anything is fair game. They also played WFS on the ADTOE tour. Seems obvious that only MP had a real hang up with that.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I can't even properly express why, maybe I don't even really know myself, but something rubbed me off the wrong way lately with the band and I have not been in a DT mood lately. With James endorsing clothes, Jordan fucking around with his iPads all the time, Petrucci fucking up the last album yet talking about a book and with that last "burnt-out" interview by MM, I feel weird about the band right now.
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How about "DT used to make music, now they develop a brand"? (to be fair, it started while Portnoy was still there)
 
I think it would be naive to think that any band selling their music or merchandise is anything but a brand.
 
Most older bands only release new material lately because they have to. 1 album every 2 or 3 years is a norm and not a lot of bands go "It's been 2 or 3 years and we aren't really inspired but we have to release something". Maiden is an exception. Deep Purple had a big break. Bolt Thrower wrote a new album and scrapped it because it couldn't live up to their previous album and they didn't release anything else before they split up. Mille from Kreator also talked about this, hence the 5 year break between their last two albums. Metallica also isn't really inspired anymore hence the huge breaks but they are one of rare bands that can afford to have an 8 year long break between albums.
 
Is there any word on when they will announce the tour dates? These past few days I've been anxiously waiting...
 
That Bosk guy on the DT forum keeps dropping more hints. He now says there will be an Instrumental song played and some songs from the Astonishing. I'm also 95% sure that ACOS is the encore song.
 
Yea she was killed in a plane crash. That section of the song is supposed to be taken literally AFAIK.

ACOS is probably his best lyric. Definitely his most subtle. Probably helps that they spent such a long time working on it. It's actually technically MP's first attempt at lyrics. Even though The Mirror came out first, the band were playing ACOS as early as the I&W era.
 
Oh, by the way - on New Year's Eve, me and my wife had this couple over that we have really close relationship with, but who never actually gave metal a second thought (you know, because they were raised in the environment of folk, jazz, church music etc.). Of course we had to play them something we love and we put on Systematic Chaos, but after mere 2 minutes of ITPOE (where there's the buildup and the repetition of the opening descent, you know) they were really hooked and said that they understand really well how people become metal fans. So SC can't be that bad. :D
 
Yeah, these two dears are really perceptive regarding what the music might mean. And though they've been told by others metal is for dumb people who only crave stupid heaviness, they don't have any such prejudice themselves. So they just see it's complex, it has a meaning (they go completely crazy about DT's concepts and the things they try, like the 12 step suite, SDOIT with it's representation of mental illnesses, Dance of Eternity etc), that it's really hard to reproduce, it's full of energy and even catchy (in a way). So they just see it as quality music. It's just amazing, I never expected such reaction.
 
jazz from hell said:
I tried that once with two classical musicians who don't like metal and played them The Chemical Wedding, and they just found it crap. And once with another classical musician who likes (classical) avantgarde stuff and played him Meshuggah, and he said he felt like he had to puke. As soon as it's got a distorted guitar, some people just don't get it.
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In all fairness, both The Chemical Wedding and anything by Meshuggah contain notes played by distorted guitars that are so low they're almost indiscernible to the human ear. Combine that with the latter's vocal style and they're sure not to like it. If they're into classical, try The Odyssey by Symphony X (or something similar).
 
Or Kiss of Fire. "That one was fake anger, almost St. Anger. This one is serious anger. The real deal." :ninja:


But yeah, Meshuggah tend to repulse even me a bit, technical or not, so I'm not surprised. I second Detective - try something closer to their preferences. First ELP, then Dance of Eternity and soon they'll be cracking Mekong Delta like crackleberries, or whatever do they eat there over the pond. :D
 
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