Mike Portnoy “and then there were three....!”

Instalments that is!

Hi there! Welcome to the third in the ever-changing world of developments in Mike’s set up and related ‘happenings’....

Not so much to report as the first couple of features, but some cool stuff anyway! Read on...

• Most of you will be aware that Mike used a 4 drum version of his old Tama Imperial Star kit (the black set with the Majesty logo on the drums) as used on “Images and Words” and subsequent “Music in Progress” tour for the recording of FII – well this kit has been going through a real renaissance since then in that it has featured as the secondary kit on some FII shows and at the Rotterdam fan club show, where it was augmented by another tom to Mike’s left – the cymbal configuration was a little different for that show too, compared to what was used on FII – the kit still sounds great and furthermore, it has become the kit used for Liquid Tension Experiment recording and recent live shows... the only “new” drum is the snare from Mike’s Starclassic armoury and it uses the patented Tama “air-ride” system of mounting

• I got the full breakdown of the LTE kit direct from Mike as used for the first album – this is the “other half” of the Imperial Star kit which Mike did not have with him on tour and consisted of a 24” kick drum, 14” tom to MP’s left next to the hi-hat, the Timbalitos (normally at Mike’s left on his monster kit) get mounted in front with a 12” tom-tom next in line over the kick drum, and an 18” floor tom to the right.

Cymbals are 14” hi-hats, 22” HH Rock ride, 17” crash, 19” crash a 12” and 14” “firecracker” stack (i.e. 2 cymbals mounted directly on top of each other) and a 10” and 10” “firecracker” stack, 8” and 10” splashes and finally a 20” China on the right (for the LTE 2 sessions, a Terry Bozzio ‘Radia’ was added on the right hand side along with a couple of minor adjustments. The single kick was played with a DW double pedal, which proves MP is as good playing a single kick as he is on his normal double kick set-up!

• The term “firecracker” is an MP description for the short delay trashy sound he gets from mounting certain cymbals directly on top of each other – they sound awesome (i.e. like firecrackers!)

• The FII tour saw Mike using Asics wrestling boots – these are excellent for drumming as they have a thin sole, which gives great ‘foot to pedal’, contact – so good I got some myself! But remember that Mike likes to change things around so keep an eye on his footwear for the next tour!

• The early shows on the FII tour saw MP using front heads with album cover images on them, but minus the Tama logo – this was certainly the case up to the end of 1997 – by the legs after Christmas of that year, the white logos had been added (this applied to the European and US kits).

• When Mike uses his monster tour kit for clinic appearances (Finland and Brazil are recent examples) the “FII image” front kick drum heads get replaced by plain black heads with the Tama logo – this is only a point of interest in that during the clinics that Mike did in 1995 using his old Mapex kit, the front kick drum heads remained in place (Awake images) so the kit looked identical to the way it would have been at a normal DT show.

• On the subject of clinics, again, Mike rarely gets to use his own kit these days (unless like Brazil and Finland he does them in the middle of a tour) and has to play on whatever is locally supplied, so some adjustments have to be made as things aren’t always where he would normally have them (e.g. cymbals/drums not mounted at their normal heights!) – more proof that this guy is adaptable to ALL situations!

• The end of the FII tour shows with ELP and Deep Purple in the US saw Mike finally replace his bar chimes; he had two completely new sets, one to his left, the other under his right hand china as normal – again the eagle eyed amongst you will have seen the gradual deterioration of the chimes as the tour progressed (this happened on the “Awake” tour too!) so it was nice to see the new sets for those last few shows!

• I don’t know the reason as I didn’t get a chance to ask Mike, but for the Athens show in Greece on the FII tour (and possibly other selected shows in southern Europe?), the usual “white with green rings” European kit was not used, instead Magee (Mike’s drum tech) had the challenge of taking a locally supplied Starclassic kit, with no rack and normal black Octobans/Gong bass drum and building it up for that show – he made a great job as that’s a hell of a lot of stands to set up! The kit was the same finish as that used in April 1997 when the band came over for some European shows – this was before Mike had the 3 identical sets built for the US, Japan and Europe. The “Athens” kit had normal black front kick drum heads with the white Tama logo.

• The recent LTE shows in the States saw Mike using the kit as mentioned earlier and the front kick head had “LTE” in designer tape added to it!

• Finally, Mike got a new tattoo – it’s on his left shoulder!

As always, I hope this piece has been of interest and highlights some things that you may not have been aware of.

See ya next time!

Al Muirden Jan ‘99