Dream Theater

Kentish Town Forum, London

Tuesday, December 9

Rating: 4out of 5

Surreal or what? Two fans faint tonight during the show, and there’s a television set on top of one of the amps showing Aston Villa’s UEFA Cup match live – while the band are playing!

You don’t expect anything like this to happen at a Dream Theater show, which is supposed to be about po-faced, virtuoso talent and epic, unyielding songs. But then, Dream Theater themselves are somewhat of a surprise. Sure, there’s an enormous display of amazing musicianship and, at times, it’s difficult to fathom when one song actually ends and another begins. But they’re also very heavy, very entertaining and very focussed.

Arguably the biggest progressive rock band of the ‘90s, the band draw equal inspiration from Queensrÿche, Rush, Judas Priest and Slayer. Every song dips and dives through a welter of emotions and styles, yet it all sounds so natural and fluent. From ‘Lines in the Sand’, through the likes of ‘Hollow Years’, ‘Peruvian Skies’ and ‘Under A Glass Moon’, they hold the capacity crowd spellbound. Not only are this lot consummate musos, but they’re also performers who project character, humour and passion – and when they pull a version of Deep Purple’s ‘Perfect Strangers’, it sounds even better than the original!

Surreal.

—Malcolm Dome