Dream Theater Live At Wembley Arena Review February 10th 2012: The Dramatic Turn Of Events Tour
A Dream Theater live show is always a special experience, and no two shows are ever the same. Both things continued to be true on their latest visit to London for the Dramatic Turn Of Events Tour, their first arena tour with their most recent album of the same name under their collective belts. This was also the first Dream Theater UK arena tour with Mike Mangini behind the drum kit, having made his full UK Dream Theater debut when the band headlined the High Voltage festival so fantastically in the Summer of 2011 at Victoria Park, also in London.
Wembley Arena has been Dream Theater's London venue of choice for the previous two tours in addition to this one, however, somewhat perplexingly, on this occasion the venue reverted to it's all seated mode, whereas the previous two shows have had floor standing. In my opinion this detracted from the atmosphere somewhat, but certainly not the performance, but more on that later. With the show taking place on a Friday night at the end of a busy week and both myself and fellow Dream Theater devotee Matt working late we missed opening band Periphery, who I'm told were good but neither of us are particularly fans so we felt there was no great loss there.
Wembley Arena was not full for this show (very much a sign of the strain on people's disposable incomes), though there was still a sizeable crowd in attendance which I think, all things considered the band certainly would have been pleased with. Come 8:30 and the lights went down and Hans Zimmer's The Dream Is Collapsing provided it's usual intro for a Dream Theater live show before that was replaced with the bellowing intro to Bridges In The Sky, one of the stand out tracks from A Dramatic Turn Of Events. All members of the band were greeted with a warm welcome from the Wembley masses, with the biggest cheers being reserved for Mike Mangini and James Labrie.
Dream Theater in all their progressive metal glory
In over eight years of seeing Dream Theater live previously, I've never seen them do what I would consider "an album tour" but tonight's set was very much focused around A Dramatic Turn of Events, with bits and pieces from throughout the band's history punctuating the newer material. Of the new songs, Bridges In The Sky sounded particularly impressive, while Build Me Up, Break Me Down was much better without the horrible distorted vocal effect that the chorus finds present on the recorded version. Outcry also deserves a mention for being rather awesome too.
Dream Theater may not have Mike Portnoy programming complicated fresh setlists every evening in every city on their tours anymore but this was a very interestingly constructed setlist with many surprises that slotted in very well amongst the new material. The Root Of All Evil from Octavarium and Surrounded from Images and Words were very popular choices, while during the mid set acoustic interlude Awake's The Silent Man featuring just John Petrucci and James Labrie was one of the best songs of the night. The inclusion of A Fortune In Lies from first album When Day and Dream Unite also pleased the oldest and most hardcore of Dream Theater fans in attendance.
After the rather exceptional drum solo from one Mike Mangini at High Voltage I wondered if another one would be forthcoming and we did not have to wait too long to find out the answer would be yes. The man is absolutely rediculous behind the drums and makes even Mike Portnoy's complicated drum routines look simple, all the while with an enormous grin on his face the whole time. I think his solo was the only time in the entire evening he even looked like he was concentrating rather than having an absolute blast. If you've never seen a Mike Mangini drum solo, look one up on YouTube, to say it's quite something is an understatement.
Mike Mangini: The fastest drumsticks in the west
The last third of the show noticably stepped up a gear to another level. On The Backs Of Angels got an enormous singalong for the chorus whilst the one-two punch of War Inside My Head straight into The Test That Stumped Them All from Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence brought out the most headbanging of the night. A really nicely slowed down intro section with Jordan and John preceded James Labrie introducing one of the band's most popular songs of all time The Spirit Carries On and Wembley sungalong at the volume that that song deserves when it gets a rare outing on nights like this one. Breaking All Illusions, A Dramatic Turn Of Events longest song saw the main portion of the evening closed off in suitably epic traditional Dream Theater fashion. There was much debate around us about what the encore would consist of, a debate which swiftly ceased when the lights went back down and the opening bars of the most well known Dream Theater song there is blared over Wembley's considerable array of speakers and for only the second time in eight years plus I got the thoroughly brilliant experience of seeing Dream Theater play Pull Me Under live. It was a fantastic end to what was a really good evening.
The Dream Theater Wembley Setlist was:
- The Dream Is Collapsing (Hans Zimmer Intro)
- Bridges In The Sky
- 6:00
- Build Me Up, Break Me Down
- The Root Of All Evil
- Surrounded
- A Fortune In Lies
- The Silent Man (acoustic)
- Beneath The Surface (semi-acoustic)
- Outcry
- On The Backs of Angels
- War Inside My Head / The Test That Stumped Them All
- The Spirit Carries On
- Breaking All Illusions
- ======================================
- Pull Me Under
It goes without saying that all of the band were on fine form, particularly messrs Petrucci and Mangini while Jordan Rudess and John Myeung were their usual epically reliable selves. As well documented James Labrie is often the weak link of a live Dream Theater show, and whilst he was not quite at the level of the best I have heard him (High Voltage) he was also on good form for the most part which always helps keep a Dream Theater live show up at the level of standards one would expect from such a talented group of musicians.
This is not the best I've seen Dream Theater, but that remark has to be put into perspective as I've spent some fantastic evenings in their company; The night they played The Dark Side Of The Moon as well as a full set of their own material at The Hammersmith Apollo, Prog Nation with Opeth also at Wembley Arena and their headline performance at High Voltage last summer to name but three. As previously stated I also don't think the all seating arrangement helped the atmosphere and there was possibly a tiny bit too much of the new album, but such is the vast array of music at the disposal of a band like Dream Theater you will never get to hear all the things you'd like to hear in one go. They were hugely entertaining as always and always worth going back to see every time they tour - and if you haven't seen them yet, what are you waiting for!
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