Originally published in Music Connection magazine V17 N6 · March 1993
gig review
By The Palace
Review2 min read
Dream Theater
Hollywood
Rating: 6 out of 10
• The Players: James LaBrie, vocals; John Myung, bass; John Petrucci, guitar; Kevin Moore, keyboards; and Mike Portnoy, drums.
• Material: Look at Dream Theater the way you would an update to your computer’s software – more powerful, but essentially the same thing. In this case the product is Dream Theater: Iron Maiden II, or maybe Dream Theater: “Queensrÿche with better keyboard action!” Are you following me?
• Musicianship: This band is spotlessly clean. We’re talking Berklee College of Music clean. In fact, Myung is so impeccable, he indeed may be the Yngwie Malmsteen of bass. Moore has the artful ability to make keyboards sound well-placed in metal mayhem, and on this level he takes the genre to the next plateau. Petrucci is a technical wizard layering note after note, but whatever subtle touches exist in his style tend to be overwhelmed by the cumulative impression of the other three. The fifth member is LaBrie, and although he is also extremely competent and well trained, he is nevertheless the least interesting musical element. One reason is that there is no decipherable character to make his vocal style unique.
• Performance: Their performance harkens back to the glory metal days of the Sunset Strip in the mid-Eighties, replete with a light show and pyrotechnics. Truly there was not one element of this show that didn’t feel like some flashback to a Ronnie James Dio concert you saw many moons ago. The sound system is crisper these days, but, hey, what else can you say that you didn’t say seven years ago? Not that anyone in the audience complained: except for an ill-timed opening to the show in which the curtain rose but no band appeared, the Palace held nothing but cheers.
• Summary: The intriguing element of this band is their collective musical mastery, which no doubt will propel them over time to push the envelop of progressive metal, and maybe even break through that label. For now, though, they conform to the rules of this game like a straight-A student.
—Sam Dunn