Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour Live with the Octavarium Orchestra DVD
Rhino has found the light and released a gem. I can seriously say that
I have been a fan of DREAM THEATER since 1988 and still love what they
are doing. In this day of studio release and then DVD-live-release,
Dream Theater have come out with more than that. This Live show is a
retrospect of this band's 20 year run so far.
They start it off with a grand intro where you see the venue Radio City
Music Hall with a montage of photos over the years. The record starts
with newer stuff like “Root Of All Evil”. The clarity of this DVD is
just awesome. The sound is also tops! “I Walk Behind You” and “Another
Won”(that is a newer unreleased track) opens this record. They then
delve way back to t eh first record serving up “Afterlife”. I really
enjoy hearing James La Brie doing songs from the first album.
They then speak to the crowd and welcome the 6,000 in attendance and
say that this is the last stop on the tour. They jump to the stuff I
loved like “Under A Glass Moon” and “Innocence Faded”. They then go on
to play more unreleased songs like “Raise The Knife” from the Falling
Into Infinity sessions.
More of the lengthy songs are here like “The Spirit Carries On” and the
orchestra is unveiled on “Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence” when Mike
Portnoy dawns a Tuxedo T-Shirt and is it funny as hell. If you look
close enough some of the orchestra member seem blow away by the whole
thing. They become a bit subdued on “Vacant”.
There are plenty of other tracks here that will kick your ass. They
close it with “Metropolis” and they offer no ENCORE and for good
reason, they just laid down well over two and a half hours of music.
They have stuck to this listeners ears like glue and make prog heavy
and still have a beauty, majesty and magic that cannot be touched. I’m
ready for another 20.
