Dream Theater

Dream Theater
August 9, 2007
State Theater
Minneapolis, MN

Opening Acts
The show started right at 7:00 PM as advertised on the ticket. It is 8:45 PM—two horrible opening bands just played.
The first was some Canadian Math Metal Band—truly horrible. They had a bald drummer, as well as a bald bass and a bald lead guitar—long haired rhythm and singer from the movie Rockstar (throw your head back and yell “AAAHHHHHHEEEHHEHEHE”—over and over again). As they took the stage the guy next to me muttered “looks like its time for some head banging”. Their “territory” in Canada was very cold. So cold, in fact, that they wrote a really unlistenable song to celebrate it. If Canadian Territories are half as cold as this song sucked then it is a wonder that every one up there is not dead. Lord knows, I wish I was put out my misery while being subjected to these guys. At one point they actually bragged that one of their songs had been played on the Mtv’s Head Bangers Ball—they wanted to be rock stars in the worst possible way. It was hard to watch. I just wanted to go up on stage and kick all of their asses.
Redemption was next. They had an Asian Lead Guitarist who had some fun dwarf dance steps. A very serious Emo lead singer fronts this band. He appears to have forgotten that he got into rock for the chicks. This may be easier to do in MN then anywhere else in the world. Redemption redeemed absolutely nothing. It was a mess of mixed up styles which lacked any focus and contained a ton of just general badness.
Both bands played the same song for 45 minutes.
There was a street signal hanging from the lights—it is just over the orchestra pit which is two roped off rows of about 10 seats. The signal has two ants crawling on it. The light was red. I have no idea if this is a song reference but it was a cool way to keep the crowd focused during set break.
8:51 the stop light has gone yellow.
Also, the preshow music has changed. An up beat violin thing which I do not recognize is playing. It is a good song, but not great. It is creating a fine mode in this venue. Which is all art decoded out—gilded stage ends and balconies and stuff. Murals of the muses (Comedy, Fantasy, and Tragedy on stage left from the back—Music, Cinema, and Opera on the other side—all very naked nymph Greek looking stuff. There are also ants on the guitarists pedal box, the little side keyboard stand, the street light behind the marshal stack, and two on the gong stand. All of these are about three feet long—there is a five footer at the front of the stage.

Set List
Constant Motion
Panic Attack
Blind Faith
Surrounded
Dark Eternal Night
Keyboard Solo
Lines in Sand
Scarred
Spirit Carries On
Presence of Enemies
E: Medley: Tears in the Rain
Finally Free
Learning to Live
In the Name of God
Octavarium

I copied this set list down from a woman who got the copy which was taped down under the lead singer’s feet. I was writing quickly so there are likely errors (which have likely been corrected!), but here are my individual thoughts on the songs largely recorded when the song was playing.
0. Video montage opens the show.
It is of the band throughout their history and is played on a HD screen behind the drum kit about 40 feet across. While this is going on the band instrumentalists slowly walk out—they start fiddling and end up blasting out a massive Also Sprach Zarathustra jam to start the show—the drummer is going big, jumping up and down, the guitarist makes a slight charge at the audience which goes wild at one point. The bass player is hanging out slowly bobbing his head. The most action is likely from the keyboardist who is pumping his fist and basically having a very good time getting ready for the show.
1. Constant Motion
This started hard and fast with a fitful spat of jamming and then some traditional rocking. This is good start. Nothing all that mind boggling to get things going. The vocalist looked disinterested but sounded good. The drummer was dropping his sticks a lot but was on fire.
2. Panic Attack
This song started with some super space music. Swirling flower lights projected on the floor under the band. Images of crosses and candles on the screen in HD—really cool stuff on the screen the entire show.
3. Blind Faith
This song started with a keyboard jam. Slow and mellow unwinding and wandering kind of new age guitar jam comes in. A Wall image goes up on the screen and the band starts jamming solo for Pink Floyd. It is massively good. At this point, this song was the highlight of the show for me.
4. Surround
Big rock chord opening—EVERYBODY UP! This is clearly for what the fans have been waiting. Screen has this cartoon with the band battling this wolf creature that is holding women puppets hostage on strings. The NADS is the North American Dream Squad—The AALANO clubs in MN call their meeting groups “squads” so I found that interesting. This song also had some ferocious playing. Earlier the keyboard player had come out on stage with a portable keyboard, this time he did not need such tricks to just unleash high holy musical madness.
5. Dark Eternal Night
My notes say “physically keyboard opening” I am not sure what that means. Things were getting way to loud at this point in the show—my ears were actually hurting. The band however seemed very relaxed—the drummer was still dropping his sticks, the bass player was bobbing as his fingers wrecked HAVOC on the strings. The keyboard player is insane. The guitar player appears to have become one with his instrument at this point and is just endlessly soloing. I am in the zone.
6. Keyboard Solo
Mostly designed as a break for the rest of the band I think. This had some good musical ideas presented in a much more easy to follow kind of way, I could actually keep up with much of what was being played. The ending was massive and fun.
7. Lines in Sand
This song started out with a bass jam introduction which I had been hoping to hear–the bass player is clearly Dream Theater’s Secret Weapon. It was played with serious passion and precision, likely some of the best playing of the night. During the introduction, there was a lot of audience clapping. A massive rock and roll ending closed this one. At one point I actually thought that my ear drums were going to burst—this was the loudest song of the night.
8. Scarred
I did not take any notes during this song. I remember that the jamming had taken on a very otherworldly quality. The room was starting to shift and the band seemed really locked onto something. I was struggling to keep up with any of their music ideas, I was tired from travel and lack of sleep, and my ears hurt. By the end of this song almost all of my energy was back. This song really took me somewhere else.
9. Spirit Carries On
This is a keyboard driven ballad. It was dedicated to the victims of the Bridge tragedy (a major freeway bridge had collapsed in MN a few days earlier). Every single person in the audience knew all the words to this one and sang along loudly. A big tubular jam that did not know how to untie itself finished this one up—I think the band may have started to play with energy that even they could not control with this song and a lot of the mysterious and magical energy created earlier was lost towards the end of this. Also, this song took a lot out of the audience who really got into singing and came closest to dancing then anything else that they had done this night.
10. Presence of Enemies
I do not know much about this band, but at this point the guitarist stepped up and CLEARLY demonstrated whose band this was. A big fat tight Tight TIGHT opening solo lead into some Big Guitar Jamming—kind of a retro rock and roll masterpiece on meth feel to this song, but it went over big with the crowd, fist pumping and all. I think that the drummer dropped four sticks during this song. I started paying attention to the video screens again at this point, and there were some good animation sequences during this song—in fact, the screens were uniformly strong, the light show itself could use some work—maybe invest some more money in lights and hire a decent art director. The stage design with Ants and deserted city imagery was OK, but it was not connected to the rather generic light displayed during the show. The screens, on the other hand, had some really trippy stuff going on most of the time.
10:48 “Thank you, Minneapolis”.
11. E: Medley
OK, this song had video from pretty much the only concept album by Dream Theater that I even somewhat knew. Robert had given me the album for my birthday. The songs in this cycle felt hurried—the show ended almost exactly at 11:00 PM. The video also had these balls on strings knocking into each other with the band logos. Musically, this was treated as a tool to simply show off—the musical message was mostly lost and the jam had a very distinct lack of coherence. The crowd seemed very happy with this, but I could have used something more “bluesy” for lack of a better word to end the show—it basically recapped a lot of the intense precision jamming that had gone on earlier, but did not add all that much to the overall show. The show ended at 11:10 PM.
At the end my ears hurt a lot. I was very thirsty. It was an extremely fun show—lots of smiles and nods in the crowd. Some of the jamming did get kind of repetitive in the first section of the show, but the band really pulled it out during the final few songs. I bought the concert shirt to wear so I looked like I knew what I was doing, but I will give this to T-Hamas for his birthday when I get home.
Exit music was the Beastie Boys.