Their best live release, and a great version of the Scenes album as well as "A Change Of Seasons". Makes the studio versions unnecessary IMO.
Their best live release, and a great version of the Scenes album as well as "A Change Of Seasons". Makes the studio versions unnecessary IMO.
Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.
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For me, as a general rule, live versions trump their studio counterparts. I'd certainly consider those commercial versions definitive releases.Originally Posted by Progatron
I too was at the Scenes show and the Score show. The Scenes disc perfectly aligns with my experience of the show: awesome.
The Score disc might as well be a different show. To these ears, the 'progduction' of MP & JP sucked all the life out of what felt so awesome live.
Scenes is the live DT disc to own.
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
Wasn't Yanks at the Scenes show? Could have sworn he said he was.
I haven't played this in quite a while, been drifting away from all things prog metal for a while (except for Rush) but this is a great show. I loved it when James says, "sorry for the short set" at the end of the concert.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Petrucci, Portnoy and Myung (with all that cumulative aggregate talent and taste) all agreed to hire the guy as their singer.
I can't imagine any reason other than they thought he was absolutely brilliant.
And, as we all know, those kind of opinions never change (see: Tony Kaye, Derek Sherinian, et al)
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Derek was always the #2 choice after Jordan, who was offered the job first, but turned it down to tour with the Dregs. I never felt the band felt that way about Labrie.
It wasn't always the case; enough to check the (official) bootlegs from the 1993-98 period. They really liked to mess with arrangements and add improvised bits here and there. Try to find a copy of Old Bridge, New Jersey, Dec 14, 1996 to hear how these guys used to be capable to stray off the beaten path:
http://www.ytsejamrecords.com/Produc...3&idcategory=8
I dropped off when they brought Jordan Rudess in because I could not stand his soulless technocratic shredding. I caught them on their tour supporting Scenes from the Memory and it was probably the dullest music concert I have ever been to. The discussed live album is no better.
Here are two versions of a 90-second long instrumental segment from "Trial of Tears", which IMO encapsulates the dramatic change in their playing:
DT with Sherinian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IetG94WEEWs#t=562
DT with Rudess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3u7OaTIFNk#t=537
Last edited by Jay.Dee; 09-28-2015 at 05:45 PM.
I prefer Kevin Moore but everyone's mileage varies.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Score does as good a job of recapturing what it was like as I could have expected. They got as close as possible (at least with the DVD.)
Derek always gets an unfair shake (myself included.) I still think he's the wrong guy for Dream Theater although at that time he may have been the right guy. I love Derek's solo stuff and Planet X. For me, things didn't get right again (Especially live) until Jordan joined. But Derek was up against it from the start (replacing Kevin Moore, label pressure, Mike's drinking....) There was a lot going on that wasn't immediately known and Derek seemed to be the poster boy for those changes.
He's a great guy though (having met him a few times when he was in the band) but he's still my least favorite of the three although I do think he adds a different dimension.
If I absolutely had to pick an all-time favorite band, it'd be DT. The DVD version of this show has been a favorite of mine for years. That being said, I'm in the camp of the folks who (respectfully, in my case) find little to appreciate in James's vocals.
'The smell of strange colours are heard everywhere'- Threshold
I recently saw some vids of their recent performance at the Opera House. The musicianship is great, the sound was superb but Labrie's singing parts mostly weren't. Hard to say if it's the vocal parts as such or his singing.
I like his low and mid range but his higher register sounds like ugly screaming. It's entirely possible that I just don't get it, as they say.
Are there any news about the upcoming album? Last I heard it's going to be released sometime early next year.
LaBrie to me is more of a hair metal vocalist. I really don't get any sense of grit from his singing.
I was afraid when he first joined, but I think he's been able to keep that in check for the most part in his role with the band. His solo albums hint at that a bit more.
The two Mullmuzzler albums were great, the rest of them under the James Labrie name are mostly uninspiring heavy music.
As do I.
It's him in particular that I struggle with. If they had a singer like Dio, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson etc., who can handle the OTT stuff with a bit more power and gravitas, I would like them more.
I'm not even sure why I still have all but the most recent of James' stuff. I really don't listen to any very often. I may like the Mullmuzzlers more, but it's been years since I've listened to any of that.
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