The moment has arrived. Always ready to amaze their many fans, DREAM THEATER are back on Italian stages with their brand new TRAIN OF THOUGHT WORLD TOUR 2004 which started on 16 January from Manchester and landed in the beautiful country for three concerts and a total of more than 10 hours of music. A real record!
Indeed, it is not trite to say that on this occasion Dream Theater really outdid themselves: a concert which starts at 8.30 p.m. and lasts 210 minutes (!) with a 15-minute interval separating two actual theatre acts.
The set design is, if possible, even more sumptuous than usual, with mega-screens creating atmospheres, showing landscapes and images themed to the powerful progressive rock of which Dream Theater have been the undisputed champions for over 15 years. The screens are also a choice linked to the desire to bring to the public all the power that the five musicians express while playing and singing: in fact, this tour, like the record of the same name, released in November 2003, represents a small turning point for a band that has survived countless 'invasions' (grunge, rap-metal, punk-pop, etc.) and has prospered by continually modifying its music without ever alienating its first-time fans. What differentiates this record, and Turkey promotes it, from Dream Theater's previous records is not the taste with which the band shapes metal, but the power with which they do it.
The idea was born at the time of their previous tour, the Six Degrees of Inner Tourbulence 2002, during which, for fun and as a gift to fans who had seen dozens of concerts, Dream Theater often included covers of the hardest songs of hard rock and heavy metal bands, such as Metallica's Master Of Puppets and Iron Maiden's Number Of The Beast, in their setlist. The result is a rediscovery of the heavier, meaner sound of progressive metal.
Says Mike Portnoy, the band's massive drummer:
"We looked at our set list and realised that our most aggressive songs - 'Pull Me Under,' 'The Mirror,' 'Home' - have always been the most fun to play and a favourite with our fans. So, with all this in mind, we made the production lighter and focused on making the sound as powerful as possible. As a result, we ended up with not only our shortest album since Images And Words (1992), but also our heaviest." In fact, Train of Thought is strangely a single album (which is not often the case for Dream theatre, who have accustomed fans to double and triple albums, perhaps costly but always splendid). Nonetheless, this allows the band to cover all the most epic moments of their career during concerts (they play songs from 13 of their 16 albums to their credit), giving shows lasting more than three hours with a slightly different setlist each night. "This is what Dream Theater is all about," Portnoy comments enthusiastically. "We prepare for a tour with ten hours of material to give the fans a different show every night. I don't know how many other bands do something like that." The truth is that other bands like Dream Theater probably don't exist.
The three Italian concerts have now sold a total of over 22,000 tickets, but last-minute fans and the curious can still find some at the ticket counters of the arenas.
Tickets:
MILANO II° anello non num 28 € + prev I° anello non num and Platea posto unico 32 €+ prev
BOLOGNA single seat 30 + prev
ROME single seat 32 + prev
ATTENTION!!!!! Concert starts at 20.30 Doors open at 18.30
DREAM THEATER are:
James LaBrie - voice
Mike Portnoy - drums
John Myung - bass
Jordan Rudess - keyboards
John Petrucci - guitars
