YTSEJAM Digest 6093 Today's Topics: 1) re mp's post by "TREVOR HOIT" 2) Manchester Show with Setlist *Spoilers* by "charles.farrell" 3) Re: promoter Free Concert by Ilia ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:59:27 -0800 From: "TREVOR HOIT" To: Subject: re mp's post Message-ID: <010c01c1a604$b42e55a0$message_id_removed> .about sorry we couldn't book Seattle, etc. Does anyone know how to contanct DT's promoter/booking people? I'd like to send them some info on some places to play in Seattle..... thanks Trevor ---YTSEJAM FILTER: Rest of message skipped because of attachment ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 03:58:37 +0000 From: "charles.farrell" To: ytsejam@torchsong.com Subject: Manchester Show with Setlist *Spoilers* Message-ID: and so here goes with my usual rambling scribblings and thoughts on Friday Night (Jan 25th) proceedings at the Manchester Apollo. Setlist stuff follows, but Mike promised us a different setlist tonight in London - warning this is rather long. Charlie So the tour proper kicked off tonight in my home town (Manchester), and as per usual it was pissing down with rain most of the day. The venue (Manchester Apollo) is a seated theater holding around 2500, much bigger than the standing only venue (The Academy) where there played on the SFAM tour and it was pretty much full. Certainly in the stall there were very few spare seats and the circle looked full too - from the evidence of watching people around me's reactions to the various tunes they played, I'd deduce that most people are familiar with SFAM, but not necessarily the band's whole catalogue, still they got a rapturous response from the crowd which I doubt that the London crowd will better this evening. Plenty of folk travelled from all over the UK and many (like me) will be at the London show tonight. PoS started early - i.e. before I arrived, and for once I turned up pretty early myself (7;25). they were already into something that I wasn't familiar with, possibly from the new album. They had pretty much their own distinct setup on stage - i.e their own speakers, amps and stuff, which was quite frankly dwarfed by the shrouded Siamese monster in the center of the stage and though the sound was excellent and clear, the lighting they received was very poor. The Apollo's stage is quite big and deep, so they were not hemmed in, but all the same they chose not to really use the stage available to them and never came within 3 m of the edge of the stage. Daniel introduced the next tune 'going back to another album, lets see if anyone remembers this' - it turned out to be 'Ashes' and in fact the crowd didn't seem to recognise it, though they applauded loudly at the end. next up was Undertow from the new disk, complete with Kristopher on that cello thing. Daniel mentioned the name of the new album and asked the audience to remember it. Another unfamiliar tune followed, which I would rate as one of their less-musical numbers, before most of the band disappeared off stage, leaving the keyboard player to play 'Spirit of The land' after which everyone else returned. This time Daniel left his guitar behind and delivered an energetic performance of 'inside' - one PoS tune I really, really like. The lighting for this number was dreadful! Daniel was leaping about the stage while a sucession of purple and mauve lights, of low intensity, pretty much left the band in the dark as far as the audience were concerned. The number was excellent musically however. the band really need to have a word with the lighing guys, cos I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that the audience would like to see them :-) PoS played until 7:50. I guess that the mst have started at between 7:00pm and 7;15pm - so I'll be getting to the venue in London early tonight. Around 8:30 the lights went down, some spoken bits at the end of SFAM came over the PA and the band came onstage to play 'the Glass Prison'. It was the first time I'd heard it and it didn't make much of a positive impression on me. portnoy shared a lot of the vocs with James, who at the end of the number welcomed the audience (who were already on their feet) and decalred how 'psyched' the band were that it was the start of the new tour. This was followed by a selection of old numbers which followed on from each other without much of a break. '6:00' was a strange choice but immediately sounded better. 'Strange deja Vu' was the first number to visibly galvanize the audience and had the crowd singing along almost straight away. As the lights went down briefly, James re-appeared on a stool stage-front and began singing something that hasn't been played for years and something I'd never heard played live before (only having been a fan since 95). It was 'Surrounded' and it sounded absolutely fantastic - those Images and Words songs really do have that extra touch of magic IMHO and this was blissful! Then it was back to James screaming his way through 'Burning my Soul', which had 'Hell's Kitchen' inserted into the middle of it. Weak song or not it certainly seems to get the crowd going and the introduction of a small raised platform to the right of Portnoy's kit (behind Petrucci) mean Labrie had a place to go stand and play sissy drum and shaker, while he wasn't required to be singing. Personally I've always found it distracting that he disappears off stage for long period and him staying on stage throughout was a really positive result of this new set-up. Then it was 'Another Hand/The Killing Hand' and once again I'm in heaven, this being one of my favouite DT live tunes. Not the finest rendition I've heard, but damn good all the same. Its been a while since I listened to this, so they may have slipped a litte extract of something else in there too. Jordan was also sited on a raised plinth and was able to spin his kurzweil, so sometimes he was facing Portnoy, sometimes facing the audience and sometime had his back to the crowd. Whatever he seemed to be having a great time. Labrie then introduced the new disk and decalared that they were going to play another tune from it. this time it was 'Misunderstood' which I was at least familiar with from the Fan Club CD. For this number Portnoy switched to sitting in the second half of his Siamese monster for the first time and the crowd responded pretty well to it. Things were then enlived with a heavy, yet slightly re-arranged version of 'Lie' before Labrie introduced a further cut from 6DOIT - 'the Great Debate'. While the petrucci solo in the middle was good, I really didn't like the chorus - once more I was hearing this for the first time. The audience reaction was once again warm, yet not exstatic. However, once gain, it was a cut from 'Falling Into Infinity' which got the crowd going again - 'Peruvian Skies', but damnd, if it didn't have half the audience jumping up and down and then they followed that with 'Pull Me Under'. never fails to get the crowd going, though I did notice a lot of people aroud me seemed unfamiliar with the words. That brought the set to a close, but the crowd really wasn't going to let them stop there. They really did scream for an encore, whereas London crowds tend to expect it anyway and since the obvious crowd-pleasing thing to do was to play something from SFAM - so we got Home. Someone forgot to switch Labrie's mic on at the start, so he was inaudible to begin with, but they turned in a good version, followed by another real crowd-pleaser in 'The Spirit carries on' - cue crowd sing-a-long time. The exercise in holding up lighters was a failure however, as obviously very few people in Manchester seem to smoke. Not bad I thought, expecting it to end there, but no - a smooth break into 'Take The Time' (though james did get caught out here) and an instrumental jam featuring bits of 'By-Tor and the Snow Dog' - Yahey! left the crowd sated. Huge cheers again at the end - (boy it makes me pleased that the band get such a good reception in my home town) and a very pleased looking Portnoy shook hand with the crowd, wearing an 'Iron Mike' Portnoy' dressing gown before telling us 'See you in London tonight - with a completely different setlist' - its gonna be fun :-)) So there we are - pretty good performance all round. All the instruments were nice and clear (including Myung), labrie was pretty much on the majority of the time - a few screechy parts, but nothing terrible. Portnoy doesn't need all that kit on stage - it look impressive, but, hell I'm no drummer, but there are plenty of decent drummers who make do with a lot less. No wonder they need 3 articulated trucks!! Great to see that PoS got a great sound, but I really would like to see them being able to use a bit more of the lighting on the rest of the tour. whoo - its London tonite! Setlist: - Glass prison - 6:00 - Strange Deja Vu - Surrounded - Burning My Sould/hells kitchen/Burning my soul - Another Hand/the Killing hand - Misunderstood - Lie - The Great Debate - Peruvian Skies - Pull Me Under ======= - Home - The Spirit Carries On - Take the Time / Rush (By-tor and The Snowdog) medley ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2002 13:30:09 -0800 (PST) From: Ilia To: ytsejam@torchsong.com Subject: Re: promoter Free Concert Message-ID: I think what's missing there is the fact that promoters need money, too. We live in a relatively capitalist society, and everyone has to make money, besides performing their duties to everyone else's satisfaction. If the people running the venue booking the show don't see potential in the band to draw enough money for the venue to profit, then it is difficult to book that show. Right? Promoters, falling somewhere in-between, have to deal with that issue, with public demand, and with what the band wants to do, ultimately. So their job isn't as easy as it seems. However, I do not condone Dream Theater not playing shows in some big places in the nation. There had to have been alternate ways to make room for those shows. - Ilia. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! http://auctions.yahoo.com ------------------------------ End of YTSEJAM Digest 6093 ************************** === Contributions to ytsejam: ytsejam@torchsong.com === === Send requests to: ytsejam-request@torchsong.com === === Brought by the ghost of ytsejam@arastar.coms past === === Reach the owner of this list at: ytsejam-owner@torchsong.com ===