I saw Dream Theater’s “The Astonishing” tour Monday night in Grand Rapids MI. The show is a complete run through of the new album from beginning to end split into two halves with an intermission. Part one goes close to 90 minutes with the second half around an hour. The album is presented with videos and lighting that help tell the story. There are definitely some elements of Broadway / theater to some of the show. I thought they did a really nice job with the whole thing for the most part. I have only owned the album for about 2 weeks so have given it a few complete listens, but not overly familiar with it. There is a lot to absorb over the course of 2 plus hours, and the story seems to be kind of a typical tale of oppressed society, evil ruler, hero who comes forth and falls in love with the evil leaders daughter……..or something like that. Whether this goes down in history as a classic prog concept album remains to be seen I guess. Instrumentally the band played great, and Labrie’s voice was in good shape all night. He really stood out on some of the ballads. Jordan’s new keyboard rig is pretty cool, and of course Mike had a huge multilevel drum kit. It was certainly a different atmosphere from a normal Dream Theater concert with the audience sitting and listening until close to the end of the show. There was not nearly as much audience interaction as when I have seen them before, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There were a few negatives. It may have just been where we were sitting, but the sound mix left a lot to be desired. The guitar and keyboards were way up front with bass and drums buried through most of the night. Labrie’s vocals were rather muddy and it was very difficult to tell what he was singing especially on the louder rockier stuff. Like the album itself, I think the first part of it is a bit long in the tooth. There are several false ending moments, when you kind of think it is over, but it just keeps going. The 2nd half (and 2nd CD) is much more compact and moves along at a better pace IMO. Maybe it was just me, but there did not seem to be a lot of camaraderie on stage between the guys. Maybe this is due to the scripted nature of the show. John Myung especially had an expression like he would rather be anywhere else and as soon as the main show was over it was like he couldn’t to get off stage fast enough as he ran into the wings and was gone. After the encore he again made a be-line off stage right after the last note, although he did eventually come back out for a final bow with the rest of the guys. Maybe he just wasn’t feeling well or something. I think it would have been cool for the band to come out and do one or two oldies for an encore, but they stuck to the new album only. I would say the venue was less than half full. The place holds around 2500 I think. They had the upper balcony completely curtained off. The Mezzanine and floor sections were both about 2/3rds full. We about 7 rows back on the very left side of the floor and there were empty seats all around us. We moved in closer to the center for the 2nd half as the 8 seats next to us were empty.
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Originally Posted by Steve983
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