The North American leg of DT's The Astonishing tour is fully underway.
The controversial and daring move of performing the prog-metal musical
in it's entirety is putting their dedicated following to the test.
DT's desire is to present and perform the show as they envisioned it,
complete with a visual presentation (that could be their best ever).
This makes the statement that despite the incredible catalog of epics and
classics that helped to classify them as the icons of the genre they are content
to deal with the here and now come what may.
Was able to catch the show at the venerable Orpheum Theater in Boston on Tuesday.
Most in attendance were aware that this was not a typical Dream Theater concert BUT was
The Astonishing performed by Dream Theater...Once this was fully realized an appreciation
of this effort was obvious.
The group as always was flawless and though the music was not as heavy or
consistently technical as other efforts many memorable melodies filled the hall.
With many and varied voices for LaBrie to perform, the enigmatic singer was up to the
task with the help of an occasional triggered backing vocal.
JP and JR's solos were short and sweet and complemented the music well.
(Many fans of course missed the legendary trade-off & unison solos of the virtuosos-me too)
Myung & Mangini hard to hear on the recording sounded great in the live environment.
Having seen Yes perform Tales-Genesis do the Lamb-Floyd crank DSoTM-and Tull perform TaaB & PP
live in their entirety I can fully appreciate the effort DT put into this project. With a video show that
helps to explain the not so complicated story the concert is certainly an enjoyable evening.
There may be a little too much Disney-esque cheese and schmaltz in the story and some musical
passages to have The Astonishing achieve legendary status but two thumbs up : for giving it
the old Berklee College try....
......off to Radio City for encore performance !!!
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