I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. The first non-indie music post on Zonuts!
I love Dream Theater to bits. Revanoor and I fell in love with them together, in Rud North in first year. I had picked up three Dream Theater CDs on a pre-college trip to the UK, on the strength of three mp3s that I heard while in Coimbatore "studying" for the Tamil Nadu Professional Courses Entrance Examination.
DT are probably the world's best-known and most successful example of 'progressive metal.' To quote from Wikipedia:
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music which shares traits with progressive rock including use of complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing. The high level of musical proficiency is often combined with a lyrical counterpart in the form of epic textual concepts, resulting in lengthy songs and concept albums. As a result of these factors, progressive metal is rarely heard on mainstream radio and video programs, much due to that the length of the songs are not suited for those media.
DT has every one of the qualities listed above. None of that made-for-radio 4-minute verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus formula for them!
Mike Portnoy is one of the most talented drummers I've ever seen or heard. Watch out for his playing in the final minute or so of 'About to Crash (Reprise)!' He's also quite a character in his own right - a boxing fan, a Simpsons fan... The band's spokesman, he loves to play the crowd, often standing up mid-song and egging the crowd on.
John Petrucci is widely regarded as one of the most technically proficient guitar players in the world today. He's a regular guest on the Vai-Satriani G3 tours.
Japanese-American John Myung is regarded as a deity by bass players, although I've always felt his playing gets drowned out by Portnoy and Petrucci. If you listen for it though, his bassline is always there. Seeing him play in Pragati Maidan at the Great Indian Rock a couple of years ago was heaven!
Jordan Rudess is a keyboard virtuoso, seriously. He's fantastically talented. Since joining DT after initially turning them down in favour of the Dixie Dregs, his influence on the band's sound and songs is discernable to an album-wise follower.
James LaBrie... sigh. Having heard person after person tell me that his singing is the main reason they dislike DT, I still think noone could possibly have his place as lead singer. He's been with DT for over 15 years now, featuring on all but one of their albums. True, he doesn't enunciate while singing, especially live... but he hits the high notes required of him with ease. LaBrie contributes least of all to the band's sound - they write each album without him, merely flying him in to dub the vocals once the rest of the tracks have been laid down.
The 3 videos here are the last three segments of the title track to DT's 2002 double album, 'Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.' Six Degrees... was the follow-up album to DT's 1999 stupendous masterpiece concept album 'Metropolis Part II: Scenes From A Memory.' The title track constitutes the entire second CD of the twin CD pack, making it probably their longest song till date. The song is split into 7 segments, allowing the band to play individual parts of the song live, and allowing listeners to skip to their favourite portions of the song without having to listen from the start each time.
Six Degrees..., although a good follow up to what I consider their absolute best work, marked the start of DT's move away from their signature sound of the 1990s. Jordan Rudess contributes heavily to the orchestra-like feel of the song at many points. The clips here are taken from 'Score,' the final show of DT's 20th anniversary world tour, recorded on 1 April 2006 at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, and feature a backing orchestra a la Metallica's S&M with the San Francisco Philharmonic, if I remember correctly. Unlike S&M, however, the orchestra is quite superfluous here as the Rudess-Petrucci combination is capable of creating all the sounds that the orchestra contributes.
'Solitary Shell' is one of my favourite DT songs, simple yet catchy. 'About to Crash (Reprise)' reprises the theme of an earlier segment of the long song. The end of 'About to Crash...' always leaves me gasping for more, so I put in the final segment too - 'Losing Time/Grand Finale.' If you're going to watch the clips at all, watch them in order, and after having let the entire video download!
DT are probably the world's best-known and most successful example of 'progressive metal.' To quote from Wikipedia:
Progressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music which shares traits with progressive rock including use of complex compositional structures, odd time signatures, and intricate instrumental playing. The high level of musical proficiency is often combined with a lyrical counterpart in the form of epic textual concepts, resulting in lengthy songs and concept albums. As a result of these factors, progressive metal is rarely heard on mainstream radio and video programs, much due to that the length of the songs are not suited for those media.
DT has every one of the qualities listed above. None of that made-for-radio 4-minute verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, chorus formula for them!
Mike Portnoy is one of the most talented drummers I've ever seen or heard. Watch out for his playing in the final minute or so of 'About to Crash (Reprise)!' He's also quite a character in his own right - a boxing fan, a Simpsons fan... The band's spokesman, he loves to play the crowd, often standing up mid-song and egging the crowd on.
John Petrucci is widely regarded as one of the most technically proficient guitar players in the world today. He's a regular guest on the Vai-Satriani G3 tours.
Japanese-American John Myung is regarded as a deity by bass players, although I've always felt his playing gets drowned out by Portnoy and Petrucci. If you listen for it though, his bassline is always there. Seeing him play in Pragati Maidan at the Great Indian Rock a couple of years ago was heaven!
Jordan Rudess is a keyboard virtuoso, seriously. He's fantastically talented. Since joining DT after initially turning them down in favour of the Dixie Dregs, his influence on the band's sound and songs is discernable to an album-wise follower.
James LaBrie... sigh. Having heard person after person tell me that his singing is the main reason they dislike DT, I still think noone could possibly have his place as lead singer. He's been with DT for over 15 years now, featuring on all but one of their albums. True, he doesn't enunciate while singing, especially live... but he hits the high notes required of him with ease. LaBrie contributes least of all to the band's sound - they write each album without him, merely flying him in to dub the vocals once the rest of the tracks have been laid down.
The 3 videos here are the last three segments of the title track to DT's 2002 double album, 'Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.' Six Degrees... was the follow-up album to DT's 1999 stupendous masterpiece concept album 'Metropolis Part II: Scenes From A Memory.' The title track constitutes the entire second CD of the twin CD pack, making it probably their longest song till date. The song is split into 7 segments, allowing the band to play individual parts of the song live, and allowing listeners to skip to their favourite portions of the song without having to listen from the start each time.
Six Degrees..., although a good follow up to what I consider their absolute best work, marked the start of DT's move away from their signature sound of the 1990s. Jordan Rudess contributes heavily to the orchestra-like feel of the song at many points. The clips here are taken from 'Score,' the final show of DT's 20th anniversary world tour, recorded on 1 April 2006 at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, and feature a backing orchestra a la Metallica's S&M with the San Francisco Philharmonic, if I remember correctly. Unlike S&M, however, the orchestra is quite superfluous here as the Rudess-Petrucci combination is capable of creating all the sounds that the orchestra contributes.
'Solitary Shell' is one of my favourite DT songs, simple yet catchy. 'About to Crash (Reprise)' reprises the theme of an earlier segment of the long song. The end of 'About to Crash...' always leaves me gasping for more, so I put in the final segment too - 'Losing Time/Grand Finale.' If you're going to watch the clips at all, watch them in order, and after having let the entire video download!
'Solitary Shell:'
'About to Crash (Reprise):'
'Losing Time/Grand Finale:'
Phew... It's a lot easier to post images and videos on Wordpress!
