Mike Portnoy’s European Tour Diary ‘95

Date: Saturday – Jan. 28th, 1995

City: New York City, New York/London, England

After spending 2 weeks in Japan (and surviving the Kobe earthquake), our faithful managers Jim & Rob arranged for us to have a big 48 hour vacation back home with our families. Just as our bodies were finally shaking the jetlag and enjoying good old American food, we found ourselves back at JFK airport boarding another plane. (The crew only had 24 hours in NY and were already in London!) The flight was not that bad compared to the 14 hour flight we had taken from Japan two days earlier. Derek (Sherinian – monster keyboardist on board for the tour) and I spent the time downing champagne and orange juice and taking full advantage of the smoking section of the plane. We finally arrived at Heathrow airport around 7:30, check into the hotel and crash early.

Date Sunday – Jan. 29th, 1995

City London, England

Let the work begin! We all get picked up at the hotel at 11 AM & are brought over to John Henry Studios to begin rehearsals for our “Cover Gig” on Tuesday. Spend the afternoon running through & learning most of the set. (Zeppelin, Floyd, Queen, U2, Beatles, U.K. Genesis, Metallica, Elton John, Dregs, etc., etc.) Decide to drop Judas Priest’s Bloodstone, Iron Maiden’s Phantom Of The Opera & Deep Purple’s Child In Time. At around 8 or so, Steve Howe shows up & we spend a few hours jamming and constructing the Yes medley that he’s going to play with us. We call it quits around 10 or so & the crew begins to pack up our gear to ship to the BBC for tomorrow’s recording session. We go back to the hotel and get shitfaced at the bar drinking Guinesses & Southern Comfort while watching this year’s joke of a Super Bowl between the 49’ers & the Chargers.

Date: Monday – Jan. 30th, 1995

City: London, England

Get picked up at the hotel at 11 AM & brought over to the BBC Studios to do a live-in-session recording & interview with Bruce Dickinson for his new show. After hours of the crew checking our gear & the engineers getting sounds, we begin the session. We run through a few takes of ‘Caught In A Web’, ‘Lifting Shadows’, & ‘6:00’. Bruce then joins us & we record a killer version of Deep Purple’s Perfect Strangers with him on vocals. (Way fuckin’ cool!) We finally make our way out of there & back over to John Henry’s for our 2nd & final night of rehearsal. Steve Howe rehearses with us once again & we pretty much nail down the Yes medley. Pack it in & head back to the hotel for a last night of peaceful sleep before the madness begins. (My drum-tech/roommate Jose and I watch some English T.V. before retiring.)

Date Tuesday – Jan. 31st, 1995

City: London, England

The Day of the big (little!) Ronnie Scott’s “Dream Theater – Uncovered” gig!! We anticipated a hectic day & we got every bit of it that we expected. As soon as we arrive at the venue, we are all greeted by friends, fans, Record Company people & members of the press that we all do interviews with over the next couple of hours. The guys from Marillion show up at Soundcheck, so we spend a while with Steve Hogarth & Steve Rothery trying to put together a version of their brilliant song ‘Easter’. Being it’s a very early show, Soundcheck is cut short & we squeeze in a few quick photo sessions and an interview with Vanessa Warwick for a Headbangers Ball Special. We all head down into the dressing room along with our special guests (Steve Howe, Hogarth & Rothery, and our good friend Barney from Napalm Death) to hang out, discuss the set list, take pictures, etc. The details of the show have already been documented elsewhere, so I won’t get into it. But I will say that even though it was very strange to be playing nothing but cover songs to a seated audience in a little Jazz Club, it was a lot of fun. (Even amongst all of our flubs trying to remember everything!) Definitely a very unique evening indeed! After the gig, we all head over to ‘The George’ for a little aftershow party consisting of many pints and way too much schmoozing. We say farewell to all of our English associates until next month & pile onto our Double-Decker tour bus and begin our journey to Europe to kick off the tour in Germany.

Date: Wednesday – Feb. 1st, 1995

City: Travel Day/Bielefeld, Germany

We finally arrive at our hotel late in the afternoon & immediately go running for the nearest McDonald’s. (Which luckily was right across the street!) Spend the rest of the day walking around town with Ho (Jose) checking out the local shops. We all spend our exciting evening off watching the great porno movies available in the hotel. Looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow......

Date: Thursday – Feb. 2nd, 1995

City: Bielefeld, Germany

Do some interviews at the hotel with some Dutch Journalists who are in for tonight’s show. We finish up & then head over the venue (P.C.69) to officially kick off the European tour! The 1st night on a tour is never without its problems & today is no exception. The crew is scrambling to get the production ready for doors (much less Soundcheck!). My good buddies Fates Warning have arrived from the States (but some of their gear hasn’t, which almost forces them to pull out of the show until John Petrucci offers some of his spare gear to them.) We finally make it onto the stage for Soundcheck and unfortunately things are running so behind we had to hold the doors for an hour & a half! The freezing cold capacity crowd is finally let in & we hit the stage to begin the ‘95 tour. We were pretty rusty having spent the past week learning cover songs, but it was a fairly decent start to what should be a fun & exciting tour. Kill a bottle of Jägermeister after the show to celebrate.

Date: Friday – Feb. 3rd, 1995

City: Erlangen, Germany

Wake up parked at the venue (Stadhalle). Head in to grab some breakfast & a shower. The tour bus takes me over to the hotel to meet the rest of the band & our faithful tour manager Bill Barclay. Our label rep Helmut picks us up & takes us over to nearby Nürnberg for an in-store at Saturn Records. Real good turnout. Over 400 people. We do the acoustic thing playing ‘Lifting Shadows’ & ‘The Silent Man’, sign everybody’s shit, grab some swag & then split over to the venue for Soundcheck. Sold-out show tonight. (2,000 capacity) Fates Warning grant my request for them to play ‘Guardian’ in their set tonight. (My favorite song of theirs.) I return the favor by bringing out Jim’s acoustic guitar during ‘Monument’ much to the fans’ delight. We play a killer set tonight. The bugs are gone & we are in top-form. The crowd ruled as well. A local T.V. show filmed 2 songs. It’s great to be back!!

Date: Saturday – Feb. 4th, 1995

City: Munich, Germany

2:30 in-store at ‘World of Music.’ We play acoustic versions of ‘Lifting Shadows’ & ‘The Silent Man.’ Meet the fans, sign autographs for about an hour & then score some swag. (I P.U. the new Helloween, Mercyful Fate, Psychotic Waltz, Demon Knight Soundtrack & a cool Pantera Australian Box Set.) Head over to terminal 1 for Soundcheck & interviews for Headbanger’s Ball. After the doors open, I head into the audience to do a Beavis & Butthead routine with Vanessa which must have really confused the onlooking fans!! Real good show tonight. Over 2,000 screaming, sweating German fans. The room was so hot, it felt like a sauna & I could barely hold my sticks I was sweating so much. We throw in an instrumental, edited version of ‘Damage Inc.’ & also do ‘Perfect Strangers’ as one of the 2 encores. After the show, kick back some Jäger, some beers & crash early for tomorrow’s shoot.

Date: Sunday – Feb. 5th, 1995

City: Munich, Germany

Video shoot for ‘The Silent Man.’ 7:30 AM lobby call at the hotel for the tour bus to pick us up. The driver oversleeps & we wait an hour and a half only to find out that he’s parked next door to the hotel! Drive out to the video shoot location. I’m sick as a dog with a stomach virus, so I spend most of the day in my bunk. (So much for my co-directing credit on the video!) Run through a few takes behind stained glass, playing in a barnyard full of hay & walking through a muddy field in the freezing cold. Fun, fun, fun! I only puked once on location, too! We wrap around 7 & head back to the hotel & then on to Ludwigsburg.

Date: Monday – Feb. 6th, 1995

City: Ludwigsburg, Germany

Sleep for 13 hours to shake my 24-hour stomach virus. Feeling much better. (The German catering doesn’t help much though!) Pretty uneventful day. It seems the highlight of the day was Jim from Fates shaving his beard off so . fans would stop confusing him with me! Tonight’s show is at ‘Forum Am Schlosspark’ (whatever happened to venues called ‘The Marquee’, ‘The Roxy’, ‘The Limelight’, etc.?) AMAZING crowd!! The loudest & most enthusiastic audience in Germany so far. The show was sold-out (2,000 capacity) & recorded for a future radio broadcast. After the gig, do a little meet & greet, hop on the bus, smoke-up a little present from a friend & listen to the tape of tonight’s show with Derek.

Date: Tuesday – Feb. 7th, 1995

City: Leipzig, Germany

Tonight’s show marks our first venture into Eastern Germany. It is immediately obvious that it is much different here than the other German cities we have played. The shower at the venue made me feel even dirtier afterwards than I did before I got in! Although the turn-out and reaction of the audience was a lot less than anywhere else in Germany, it was still much better than we expected. We ended up having a real fun time on stage. We added an excerpt of Ozzy’s Diary Of A Madman into Derek’s keyboard solo which worked nicely. Tonight’s aftershow was a blast: Both bands & crews (minus James, John Myung & Mark Zander) gathered along with some guests & fans and we go through 3 bottles of Jäger, a bottle of Jack Daniels & a bottle of Dracula’s Blood. (Which tastes as bad as it looks!) John Petrucci was in rare form having joined in on the drinking festivities which he usually doesn’t do. (I’m very proud of him!) The club eventually kicks us all out onto our buses & we hit the road. I spend the night travelling on Fates’ bus to get some quality time in with my boys. We continue drinking, Frank & Bones (Joe) wrestle for a while & then we all watch your favorite movie & mine: ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids!’ The finale of the evening consisted of a classic truck-stop meal: Microwave cheeseburgers, Vanilla Milch (a German delicacy) and a big bag of Gummy Bears. Overall , a very interesting first trip into eastern Germany!

Date: Wednesday, Feb. 8th, 1995

City: Hannover, Germany

Tonight’s show is at a place called “Music Hall” which basically is a giant old factory with a big tent set up on the inside as the venue. (Therefore, tonight’s show could be ‘in-tents’!) The place was freezing cold & the stage area smelled like a sneeze!! Fairly uneventful gig. Good turn-out & we played O.K. but nothing special. Viva Television was there to do some interviews & film footage from the show. After the show, I crash early & we travel to Frankfurt.

To be continued next issue.......