Dream Theater - Live in Cleveland 9/03/02

*Note: This post originally appeared in my other blog on 9/4/02, just a few hours after I returned from the concert.

I lost my live Dream Theater virginity at this show... and the boys weren't at all gentle... THANK GOD! I loved every minute of it! I've never been that pumped or full of energy at ANY other concert I've ever been to... WOW, that's all I can say... 1/3 of the concert was okay (King's X), 1/3 was AMAZING (Satriani), and 1/3 was und*mnf*ckingpardonmewhileIgochangemyundiesbelieveable (Dream Theater). I mean they blew me away.

They played Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence in its entirety... (and held the audience in the palms of their hands for all 40+ minutes of the song). They also played 6:00, Home, New Millennium and their encore was Pull Me Under in which the audience sang along to... I was standing for most of Satriani's and Dream Theater's sets singing along to Pull Me Under with the rest of the crowd. James LaBrie has fantastic stage presence, he's a huge ball of energy (that looks like Fabio meets the Pilsbury Dough Boy up close) and the audience just feeds off that energy. I think the coolest part was they kept the Siamese Monster under cover until JUST before Dream Theater took the stage... Then one of the roadies pulled the cover away and there was the biggest (pardon my french here..) f*cking drum kit I have EVER seen... I mean, pardon me while I go back to Cleveland to pick my jaw up off the ground. The drum kit is so huge that the only time you see Mike Portnoy is when he stands up to play... from time to time you see sticks being tossed in the air mid-beat and caught (without missing a beat), and arms that are moving faster than the speed of light. When Portnoy left the stage before the encore a roadie put a prizefighter's robe on him (black w/ white trim), on the back of the robe it read: "Iron Mike Portnoy" (very tongue in cheek, Portnoy isn't that pretentious). As he came back for the encore, the robe was removed again and he went apesh*t on the drums for Pull Me Under. After the encore he threw his sticks and the tambourine out in the audience.

John Petrucci was ON... and John Myung started out by playing a Chapman stick... and Jordan Rudess was WOWing me with his keyboard wizardry (and since he's grown a beard and moustache... he also wowed me with his uncanny resemblance to Jesus. I mean, I was expecting him to start throwing loaves of bread and fish into the audience).

By the end of the night my hands were sore from clapping and my throat was sore from singing along to Pull Me Under at the top of my lungs... Queen once did a song called Pain is So Close to Pleasure now I know what they meant... No sweeter ache than that of sore hands and sore throat after a concert like that. At any rate... I still hear the concert CLEARLY in my head and I'm still riding the vibe from it... what a rush!