Dream Theater & Opeth Rock Wembley - Progressive Nation UK 2009 Review

As you may have seen from other posts on this website or from twitter, this past Saturday I was lucky enough to attend the Progressive Nation UK show at Wembley Arena, Dream Theater's first appearance in the UK since their fantastic Download Festival set and their first tour in 2 years. This time they had brought along fellow progressive metallers Opeth, as well as the unknown quantities (to myself and my friends) of BigElf and Unexpect.

Getting into Wembley Arena just in time for things to kick off, we hit the standing floor just in time to see Unexpect launch into their opening song. A 7 piece band from Canada, to say they are diverse is an understatement. At times the music sounded like Opeth meets Mr Bungle or Fantomas, at other times you felt like you could have been at a French or Spanish musical (maybe a French-Canadian element in the band?). They were not everyones cup of tea, but generally went down pretty well as there was some very good musicianship amongst the craziness, not least from the bassist with his 8 string ironing board of a bass guitar.

After the obligatory drinks break, BigElf were about as far from Unexpect as you could get. BigElf were an interesting looking American 4 piece band with the lead singer sported an enormous top hat whilst playing two massive organs (one with each hand). The intro to the first track was very reminiscint of Pink Floyd in their pomp and their half an hour set turned out to be a very nice combo of 70's esque bluesy-stoner rock, with some fast progressive elements (one of my friends said Pink Floyd meets Kings of Leon's darker brothers). Mike Portnoy even made a guest appearance to drum briefly on one of their songs (everyone going mad in the process). I know i'll be getting hold of some of their albums very shortly.

Bigelf: Cool dudes with organs

Next up were everyone's favourite Swedes Opeth who got a thunderous response (there were probably just as many people there wearing Opeth shirts as Dream Theater ones) and they went straight into Windowpane, the opening track from Damnation and one of my personal favourite Opeth songs. Mikael was his usual humourous self in-between songs, including informing any girls in the audience if they were feeling down they could come and see him after the show for a one on one chat "to make it all better". Latest album Watershed got a good airing in the form of The Lotus Eater and set closer Hex Omega, whilst the older material was visited too with Deliverence and April Ethereal. Whilst it was not necessarily the setlist most people expected or would have chosen, it was (another) great performance from Opeth, and the hour went by very quickly.

Opeth: Want to please the ladies

Opeth's setlist was:

• Windowpane
• The Lotus Eater
• Reverie/Harlequin Forest
• April Ethereal
• Deliverance
• Hex Omega

Time for the main event and Dream Theater. They opened with the fantastic album opener from newest album Black Clouds & Silver Linings, A Nightmare To Remember. As good as that song sounds it sounds infinitly more impressive live and heads were banging and fists were shaking all around. What made it even better was that Mikael from Opeth popped out to do the "growly" vocal bit towards the end of the song, no offense to Mike Portnoy but Mikael can growl an awful lot better than you can.

They immediately followed with some "classic Dream Theater" as my friend Div put it, playing The Mirror and Lie from the Awake album back to back ("as they were meant to be played"). After a Jordan Rudess keyboard solo (accompanied by his cool Wizard on the video screen whos hand moments matched Jordans), they changed it up again by playing Prophets of War from 2007's Systematic Chaos. I had never really appreciated that song before, but it sounded very good live and everyone was chanting along with the chorus.

They then slowed things down by returning to Black Clouds & Silver Linings, playing latest single Wither which went down very well, before going back in time to play The Dance of Eternity from Metropolis Pt 2. As great as all this had been, the probable highlight of the night was next to come. Mike Portnoy had a drum solo, but then announced to the crowd "This kit is too big for one person", before inviting the drummer from Unexpect up to join him in a drum duel on his enormous kit. This went on for a couple of awesome minutes, and then Portnoy said "well that was the Canadians, how about an American drummer?" and the drummer from BigElf got up for a turn. This of course led to Swedish intervention as Portnoy and Martin from Opeth drummed away in time and against each other (I'm sure that satisfied a few peoples dream scenarios at that point), but to cap it all off, all 4 drummers then snared, kick drummed and cymballed away on the kit together! Stu reckoned it was worth paying the admission price just to see that, and I don't agree, but purely cos I'd enjoyed everything else so much as well!

Back to the regular part of the show and Dream Theater closed the normal part of their set with Take The Time from Images and Words, which I must admit I am not a big fan of (the song, I am a huge fan of the album). It went down very well and set the stage for the encore which was only ever going to be The Count of Tuscany and they duly obliged with the 20 minutes of creative genius that that song consists of. All the band members were in fine form, particularly Portnoy and James Labrie (the other 3 are always top notch) and it was a thoroughly awesome end to a fantastic evening, here's hoping there is either a BC&SL World Tour next year or Prog Nation 2010, so long as there is a Dream Theater tour i'll be there!

Dream Theater's setlist was:

• A Nightmare To Remember
• The Mirror
• Lie
• Keyboard solo
• Prophets of War
• Wither
• The Dance of Eternity
• Drum Duel
• Take The Time
• -------------------------
• The Count Of Tuscany

Dream Theater: Absolutely Progtastic

Tags: Progressive Nation, Progressive Nation UK 2009, Dream Theater, Opeth, Unexpect, BigElf, Wembley Arena, London

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