Forty years ago, a group of students at Berklee College of Music formed the progressive metal band Dream Theater and became one of the genre’s biggest acts. On September 12th, the prog metal icons brought their 40th Anniversary Tour to the Hard Rock Live in Orlando, Florida. With no opening act, the band treated the capacity crowd to a nearly three-hour set highlighting the new album and fan favorites.
For the first act, Dream Theater played this year’s album, Parasomnia, in its entirety. To create the mood, the set was adorned with vintage street lights and a bed on an old metal bed frame, while nightmarish images played on the video screen behind the band. It was a night of virtuoso musicianship, as drummer Mike Portnoy laid down punishing polyrhythmic beats in constantly shifting time signatures, bassist John Myung backed him with supporting grooves, and Jordan Rudess added flourishes and solos on a keyboard set on a rotating and tilting stand. Guitarist John Petrucci showed off his fretboard mastery, alternating between beautiful arpeggios, histrionic solos, and jackhammer metal riffs. Singer James LaBrie belted out the vocals while gripping a microphone stand adorned with a skull and disappeared backstage during the long jam segments.
The show was a full sensory experience. The artistic use of lighting, lasers, and smoke added to the musicians’ showmanship. Short videos introduced each song and played thematic images in the background during the performances.
During the Parasomnia set, highlights like the headbanger “Dead Asleep” and the nearly 20-minute epic “The Shadow Man Incident” showcased Dream Theater’s experimental metal compositions and technical mastery.
After playing through Parasomnia in order, Dream Theater took a fifteen-minute intermission and returned to the stage for a second set of fan favorites, such as the anthemic rocker “As I Am” and the thrashy “The Enemy Inside.” The slow-burning “Through My Words” started as a slow ballad featuring only LaBrie and Rudess, with the rest of the band later joining and shifting the song through several metal jams. During a free-flowing rendition of “Peruvian Skies,” the band incorporated licks from various songs into the jam, including Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam.” They closed the second set with the frenetic crowd-favorite “Take the Time.” For the encore, the band blazed through the epic seven-part, 23-minute tour de force “A Change of Seasons,” off the 1995 EP of the same name.
Throughout the show, fans sang along and recorded videos on their phones, but mostly seemed to spend the night appreciating musicians in top form. Each guitar and keyboard solo elicited cheers, thanks partly to an impressive audio mix that rendered each note clearly. As did Portnoy’s syncopated rhythms, abrupt tempo shifts, and bludgeoning kick drums. Over the last forty years, Dream Theater has crafted complex arrangements requiring technical prowess and has inspired countless musicians in the process. On this 40th Anniversary show, the band spent nearly three hours showing how.
