Dream Theater

After taking another look at the cover, I think I've figured out the story. In the year of 2029 , I'll assume a robot digs up the deceased body of Victoria and looks into the eye holes. He then discovers he has lived a past life and visits another robot who happens to be a therapist.

When he visits the past the whole story of Metropolis Part 2 is retold, but with robots instead of people. At the end he discovers that robots have spirits and finds peace with the fact that robot Victoria is now in robot heaven. The end.

They should have called the album Metropolis Part 3: Scenes From My Memory Card :D
 
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There would probably be more Metropolis 3 rumors had they not just put out a huge concept album. I hope there’s still a thematic element since that’s a big part of DT, but more along the lines of Octavarium than The Astonishing.
 
A few months earlier, a thread was posted by the mods at the DT forum asking what songs people would like to see make a return live. These were the top 5 songs picked:

1. Octavarium
2. The Glass Prison
3. Surrender To Reason / Blind Faith (tie)
4. In the Name of God
5. The Killing Hand

For those who are unaware, while the DT forum isn't official there are a lot of people there with direct connections to the band and the band often partners with them on things like this. I remember before the DT12 tour a poll went up there asking what anniversaries the band should honor on the upcoming tour and, sure enough, Awake and SFAM were featured pretty prominently on the tour after they were shown to be favorites. So I think it's safe to say that some of these songs will appear in the set. Surrender to Reason seems like a good bet since the band has slowly been going back to the unplayed DT12 songs and that is the last one. Octavarium is long overdue for a return and will make a good encore track. The Glass Prison is another fans have been clamoring for. As much as I love Blind Faith (probably my favorite song on the album), I've never heard a live version of it that sounded particularly great. Something about the song just doesn't really work live. It also has one of their most technically difficult keyboard/guitar unisons that Petrucci probably doesn't want to have to relearn (especially if he also has to get those Glass Prison arpeggios up to speed again). In the Name of God and Killing Hand are also good picks but they are probably going to want to use that time on the more popular/well known epics.

I'm pretty excited for whatever the setlist ends up being. One thing I love about the Mangini era is the setlists. They always have the perfect balance of new songs, fan favorites, and rarities. I just hope it's not too Scenes heavy. I wouldn't want them to devote half the show to the entire album.
 
Mosh said:
A few months earlier, a thread was posted by the mods at the DT forum asking what songs people would like to see make a return live. These were the top 5 songs picked:

1. Octavarium
2. The Glass Prison
3. Surrender To Reason / Blind Faith (tie)
4. In the Name of God
5. The Killing Hand
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I wouldn't be surprised if Octavarium came back for the tour. It would be great for an encore. It's been too long since we've seen that played. The problem though would be Portnoy's vocal parts. Would Petrucci really do them? The same could be said for The Glass Prison too.

I'm surprised though that The Killing Hand made it over SDOIT. I went back and looked at the thread and there was like no votes for the song , but rather the individual parts such as Solitary Shell. Oh well, I would rather see them do a full SDOIT anniversary tour anyways.
 
They will handle Portnoy's parts the same way they've handled his parts in other songs where he had a prominent vocal. Petrucci and JLB will record those parts and use them as backing tracks. Check out the live recording of The Shattered Fortress to hear what I mean.

It's hard to fit Six Degrees into a set. It's almost the equivalent of playing an entire album live. A lot of people also don't consider it a single song, which might be part of why there weren't many votes for it. I like it but I would rather see that time spent on other stuff. I'm not too bothered about hearing it live.
 
I forgot they played that song, so I guess that solves that. I was looking around more though and Bosk said that Octavarium was a little too long for what they had planned, so I think we could be getting all of Metropolis Part 2, perhaps split up in the second set and the encore.

With that poll there and the results the way they are, I think it would be reasonable to expect The Glass Prison and Surrender to Reason being thrown into the first set with most of the new album. I'm also thinking they could potentially take a break from I&W songs and not play any at all. But of course all of this is just speculation.
 
Not only do I hope they give I&W a break this time around, I hope they just retire the whole album. JLB can't sing those songs anymore, even with them heavily modified ala 2017. The last tour would make a good sendoff for those songs.

As for Bosk's comment. He's pretty good at dropping small hints here and there but it's never clear how much he actually knows. He knew the whole Images and Words anniversary tour setlist beforehand. That being said, based on when the comment was made, I'm guessing the setlist wasn't yet totally solidified. He was probably told that they would be focusing on SFAM, but wasn't told to what extent. Basically what we know now. But who knows.

Also, even if they devoted the entire second set to Metropolis, there's still room for an encore.
 
Mosh said:
Not only do I hope they give I&W a break this time around, I hope they just retire the whole album. JLB can't sing those songs anymore, even with them heavily modified ala 2017. The last tour would make a good sendoff for those songs.

As for Bosk's comment. He's pretty good at dropping small hints here and there but it's never clear how much he actually knows. He knew the whole Images and Words anniversary tour setlist beforehand. That being said, based on when the comment was made, I'm guessing the setlist wasn't yet totally solidified. He was probably told that they would be focusing on SFAM, but wasn't told to what extent. Basically what we know now. But who knows.

Also, even if they devoted the entire second set to Metropolis, there's still room for an encore.
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James on some of those songs were embarrassing. Take the Time and Surrounded especially. Even with them down tuned he was still pretty awful. It really goes to show just how special Bruce is singing the songs today in their original key.

I watched the forum pretty heavily during the lead up to the last tour. It's pretty clear he absolutely has connections to DT, in fact I would bet that he probably works for them. Considering he is the one that also started the poll, I think we could absolutely see a couple of those top songs in the set.

I think would have to split it up though. The second set of I&W was only 50 minutes (though they did add the two B-sides in occasionally) After the first night they also had to cut a couple songs because the show was just too long. With Metropolis part 2 being close to 80 minutes they would have to cut either a couple songs or split it up with the encore. Starting the encore with The Spirit Carries On could be a possibility
 
Mosh said:
A few months earlier, a thread was posted by the mods at the DT forum asking what songs people would like to see make a return live. These were the top 5 songs picked:

1. Octavarium
2. The Glass Prison
3. Surrender To Reason / Blind Faith (tie)
4. In the Name of God
5. The Killing Hand
Click to expand...
Where is 'Home'? :(
 
Either one of Glass Prison or Blind Faith would be amazing. As for an epic, I would actually prefer to get something completely different, like In the Presence of Enemies or Count of Tuscany, in place of Octavarium.

I'm also hoping they don't end of playing the entirety of SFAM. It would just end up eating up way too much of the setlist. I'm really only interested in hearing the songs that weren't played in 2014. So just Fatal Tragedy, Beyond This Life, Home, and Spirit Carries On would be perfectly fine for me.
 
Got my tix for the Chicago show. Definitely more $ than I'd like to spend ($65 each), but at least I have dedicated seat and I know the sound at the venue is good.
 
That’s cool but I hope the lukewarm reception to The Astonishing and low ticket sales hasn’t discouraged them from playing new music live. Would hate to see DT become a cabaret act.
 
Mosh said:
Would hate to see DT become a cabaret act.
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I think with their live history they will look to play every song live apart from The Best of Times. But with them doing I&W last year and Metropolis Part 2 next year, I think they're pretty close to cabaret status.

Not to mention they also did half of Awake in 2014.
 
Awake plus a Scenes dedicated encore. It just feels like the focus of this tour is Scenes and not the new album. I’m definitely getting the impression that after the relative failure of The Astonishing tour, they feel they need some sort of gimmick to get people to shows.

It depends on how long the album is too. If it’s DT12 length, they can play a good chunk of it live. If it’s closer to 80 minutes like most of their albums, we might only get less than half.
I’m sure every song will be played live eventually, but probably spread out through multiple tours like DT12.
 
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