The History Of The Christmas CD

After the last Christmas CD 2000 (or rather the Easter CD 2001) you could say we closed a chapter, as this has been the last actual Christmas CD. There will be free and exclusive CDs with interesting Dream Theater material in the future, but as a concept the Christmas CD has ceased to be. We thought it would be interesting to look back on the five previous Christmas CDs, that have become true collector’s items over the years...

It was 1996 whim Neil Elliott, head of the then International Dream Theater Fan Club in England, asked Mike if Dream Theater could put a special Christmas message on CD, which he could then send out to the fan club members, through the fanzine Images And Words. Mike immediately replied by even offering a CD containing unreleased and exclusive material! Mike’s enthusiasm and fan-spirit became immediately apparent. It resulted in five consecutive free and exclusive CDs, sent out with each Winter issue, to the ‘increasing amount of members of all fan clubs.

Christmas CD 1996 (DTIFC 001)

Back then, the manufacturing of the 1500 CDs was handled by the band’s management. The package was deliberately made pretty sober for two reasons: to make it look like a bootleg and to reduce the production costs. In the end, 1600 copies were pressed by mistake and Neil had to pay the additional 100 out of his own pocket. All 1600 CDs are numbered with gilded ink. Back then, Theater Of Dreams was the Dutch official fan club and just starting out, so the close contact that we keep with all fan clubs nowadays, was not so close yet in those days. Reason why our subscribers didn’t receive that special CD, unless they were also a member of Images And Words of course. The CD contains three songs that, were recorded at the famous Ronnie, Scott’s show in London, January 31st 1995, namely U2’s Red Hill Mining Town, Tears from Rush and Damage Inc. from Metallica. Also featured is a rendition of Oh Holy Night, that was recorded during a sound check in Roseland Theater, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 9th 1993. Finishing with two hilarious messages from the band, the total playing time of 27’24” matches perfectly with the “A Change Of Seasons” EP, that already contained exclusive material from the memorable Ronnie Scott’s gig. It must be said, Tears and Red Hill Mining Town are brought with a deep emotional intensity, as well as the Christmas song, that really gives more value to the extraordinary and masterly vocals of James LaBrie.

Christmas CD 1997 – ‘The Making Of Falling Into Infinity’ (DTIFC 002)

So the idea evolved steadily and from now on, the CD was designed, handled, financed and manufactured by the joint fan clubs, officially recognized by Mike, from all over the world. Mike supplied the material and the rest was done by the fan clubs, although Mike checked and approved the work during the process. For the 1997 CD, Father Mike offered the fan club members a glimpse behind the scenes of making “Falling Into Infinity”. You can hear the basic tracks of many songs, which is a nice meeting with work in progress. Outtakes from instrumental or vocal passages, harmonies etc. Unfortunately, not one song appears in its entirety, except for an interesting demo version of Take Away My Pain, which makes the CD difficult to listen to from the beginning until the end. The sliced nature of the material resulted in a not too warm welcome from the members. For the non-musicians the CD was even less interesting. In between tracks you can sometimes hear some humorous studio chats, where this time Derek Sherinian seemed to be the ‘victim’. Many members brought their disappointment to attention. Well, we cannot but advise you to listen to it again today. You’ll see that the CD is not so uninteresting as you might come to think after reading the above. Listen to track 20 and enjoy hearing that Derek knows his way around the piano, with a wink to Elton John! This CD has a circulation of 3400 copies and was manufactured in Holland. This time it’s a jewel case with a 4-page full colour booklet. The total playing time is 75’55”. It has been unavailable for a couple of years now.

Christmas CD 1998 – ‘Once In A Livetime Outtakes’ (DTIFC 003)

After the mixed reactions on the 1997 Christmas CD and to alternate live with studio material, Mike chose extracts from two live concerts, that, were recorded while on the road for the “Once In A Livetime” double live album. On June 22nd 1998 in Rotterdam, Holland. This was a special fan club members only (half)-unplugged concert, from which eventually no recordings ended up on the “Once In A Livetime” album. And on June 25th 1998 in Paris, France. A special concert in two parts, with a total duration of 3.5 hours(!), of which 2.5 hours filled the “Once In A Livetime” album. The 11 tracks that are featured on the annual gift are covers of Bad (U2), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John), Hey You (Pink Floyd) and a small part of Van Halen’s Mean Street, as well as semi-acoustic versions of Dream Theater songs Eve, Speak To Me, Lifting Shadows Off A Dream, The Silent Man, Cover My Eyes, Anna Lee and To Live Forever. This by the way is the first time that Cover My Eyes, written during the sessions for “Falling Into Infinity”, appears on CD. Speak To Me only appeared on the mini bonus CD that accompanied the Japanese “Falling Into Infinity” pressings, while Eve was only released as a bonus track on the “The Silent Man” maxi single (or on bootlegs!). A superb show in a beautiful setting with many burning candles makes this 1998 Christmas CD unanimously appreciated and offers us another cool side of Dream Theater. Great versions of the cover songs and completely rearranged Dream Theater stuff. From this CD 4800 copies were pressed in France. It has a full colour 4-page booklet with a written message from Santa Mike. This CD, with a total playing time of 60’26”, is unavailable since one year.

Christmas CD 1999 – ‘Cleaning Out The Closet’ (DTIFC 004)

This year, Mike decided to’ clean out the closet and grab the opportunity of the integration of Jordan Rudess in Dream Theater, to release every bit of left over and never released material from both the Kevin Moore and Derek Sherinian period, with the exception of the original Metropolis “ part 2 demo version with Derek Sherinian, that later became the basis for “Scenes From A Memory”. The treasure box is open. The material stretches from February 1990 with Don’t Look Past Me to February 1997’s Speak To Me. James LaBrie went into the studio in October 1999 to record the vocals for Don’t Look Past Me, as the original version featured vocalist John Henricks who they were working with at the time. (There have been more singers, amongst which Chris Collins, but they were still called Majesty back then, which is a different story!) If you would know the studio costs in the USA you would even more appreciate this gift from the band to its fans... Which features: Don’t Look Past Me, 2 versions of To Live Forever, one of which is the version recorded when James LaBrie was auditioning, the instrumental Eve and Raise The Knife, Where Are You Now?, The Way It Used To Be, Cover My Eyes and Speak To Me, songs that didn’t make it on the “Falling Into Infinity” album. Two of those songs were previously unreleased. The very Rush-like Where Are You Now? and the little epic Raise The Knife. You could pity the absence of the demo version of A Change Of Seasons, but this is pretty logical as the song is featured on an EP already. Just before Dream Theater sets in a new course with Jordan, they pull out the past one last time with this fourth Christmas CD and offer a great gift to all us fans. Initially, 5350 copies were pressed in France, another 2000 copies in April 2000. It has a 4-page full colour booklet again and clocks in at 61’02”. For the first time this CD also features a CD ROM part. A piece of studio footage (7’31”) that Mike shot in BearTracks Studio, while recording “Scenes From A Memory”. He originally made it for the Italian Fan Club Convention in 1999, which is why they all address greetings to “The Italian Dreamers”. There may be some copies still available somewhere...

Christmas CD 2000/Easter 2001 – ‘Scenes From A World Tour’ (DTIFC 005)

This final Christmas CD was the most eagerly awaited one and the one that caused the fan clubs a great deal of trouble. When talking to Mike about it, he proposed some live tracks from the special fan club Roseland Show in New York, that didn’t appear on the Scenes From New York video. However, this option had to be abandoned after talking to the label... He then proposed a Making Of “Scenes From A Memory”, but with the lame reactions to the 1997 Christmas CD still in mind, as well as wanting to keep the alternating live / studio concept going, that had been followed since the debut, we went for something else. Ultimately, Mike searched through his archives and came up with bits and pieces of hilarious and very uncommon moments, that happened during the Metropolis 2000 tour, which are featured on this last Christmas gift and at which we shall give you a more detailed look below, so you can even more and wholly appreciate this collection of pearls...

7800 copies were pressed in France. A 4-page full colour booklet. Total playing time 56’04”, with an additional CDROM part of 7’32”, shot with, Mike’s camcorder during the sound check of their final date of the Metropolis 2000 Tour, in the Hammersmith Apollo in London on October 21st, 2000. It features the band members wishing their fans a Merry Christmas... in an..... eeeeeh..... extraordinary way... You can see that they went a bit nuts at the end of the tour, which’ you could already hear on this CD on the audio parts of the Glasgow gig, that took place 3 days before the final London gig!

So What Did They Say?

• Heaven And Hell (Black Sabbath)

Recorded in Madrid on April 18th 2000

Note: James introduces the songs as “nice and mellow”!

• Medley: Erotomania / Paradigm Shift / Universal Mind

Recorded in Cologne on November 14th 1999

• What did they say?

This track is made out of all different pieces from different dates and is a collage of choruses with different (and in most cases absurd!) lyrics:

—A Change of Seasons

“I don’t need your mercy f***, to get me through the day”. Note that this line was also the original one, but the band abandoned it to not shock the listener.

—Pull Me Under

Here the chorus is changed into “Pull My Finger, I gotta fart.”

—Home

The “Help, he’s my brother, but I love her” is changed into “Help, he’s my brother, but I f***ed her”. Although it fit the story line, it’s less classy of course...

—Voices

With a friendly wink to Bill Clinton, who sees his name replacing “politicians”, resulting in “Is there fantasy in refuge, God in Billy Clinton?”

—The Spirit Carries On

JLB: “Because I believe that after we’re gone, it’s a football game.” MP: “Could it be, could it be”. JLB: “Holy F***! So much for putting feeling into it!”

—The Mirror

Mike replaces “Temptation” by “Carillo”, which is the last name of their sound manager and then “We Will Rock You”. The spirit of the moment no doubt, showing that Dream Theater was happy with their road crew and especially sound manager Jerry Carillo, who indeed did a remarkable job on this last tour. Later, Mike (yes, always him...) replaces “Hypocrite” by “Ass and Balls” and “This is sodomy.” Guess it was just one of those days....

—Fatal Tragedy

This parody was apparently forethought, as both James with the lead vocals, and Mike and John Petrucci with the choruses replace “There could be no turning back” with the insane line “eat my ass and balls”, resulting in the following: MP: “Eat my ass and balls!” JLB: “Without love, without trust...” MP/JP: “You can eat my ass and balls!” JLB: “You can eat my ass and... without faith, without hope...” MP/JP: “You can eat my ass and balls!”

• Wipe Out

Recorded in Glasgow, October 18th 2000

While introducing this crazy little instrumental, James tells the audience they have lost their minds because they’re on the road for so long, but there is no better place to lose their minds than in Glasgow! Wipe Out is a funny little improvised instrumental, after which James tells the audience that this piece is featured on “Images And Words” as a hidden track, 2 minutes after the ending of the album. Not true of course!

• Canadian Rap

Recorded in Glasgow, October 18th 2000

Obviously this piece was born when they went out of their minds during the sound check (which happens quite often) and James improvised a rap. At the concert, Mike asked James to do the rap again. While James plays hard to get, Mike just starts drumming a rap beat and throws in a couple of Yo! Yo!’s as well.....and they’re off! JLB: “Here I go / I’m coming downtown / wanna look around your town / I’m gonna buy the biggest f***ing thing / And then I’m then gonna deep down / I gonna go, back home, with that f***ing thing / Gonna give it to my wife / Ya know / What it is, I can’t tell you / But I’ll be back next year, then you’ll find out / Yo!” Mike joins in: “Yeah boy, lemme hear you say HOOOooo / Say Ho ho / I say good to go yeah / I say suck on my ass and balls / suck on my ass and balls / suck on my ass and balls / Eat my ass and balls / Lick my ass and balls / Go, go, go, go...” after which he “doesn’t recall this being on Images And Words?...”

• War Pigs (Black Sabbath)

Recorded in Glasgow, October 18th 2000

Mike invites someone from the audience to, sing the words to War Pigs, after which a Scottish fan enters the stage and joins Dream Theater for a for him undoubtedly memorable rendition of this Black Sabbath classic. His performance is not even that bad, as James lets him know later on while thanking him and saying “it was very good”.

• Keyboard solo Jordan

Recorded in Colombo, October 4th 2000

• The Spirit Carries On

Recorded in Los Angeles, February 4th 2000

The famous recording of this memorable show. You can hear for yourself now how the fire marshal interrupts the show, asks the band to stop and demands the audience to exit as the venue is too crowded (due to over-sales of tickets). But Mike refuses to stop, plays on and takes over the lyrics to The Spirit Carries On (‘we’re gonna keep going until they pull us off the stage’), asking the audience to help him out, while the amplifiers are gradually switched off. After a while you only hear the sound of the stage monitors as they just kept on going, with the audience massively taking over the lyrics! A big ‘plug-out’ when the main power is switched off and ends the show makes, the audience start to scream “F*** you!” and “Bulls***”, as well as “We love you!”. You figure out which of the yells was addressed to which party... The band was very close to be arrested and put in jail for not having obeyed the sheriff when he told them to stop playing. A memorable event!

• Guitar solo

Recorded in Den Bosch, October 14th 2000

During this solo, John throws in the riff of Metallica’s Master Of Puppets.

• Gladiator Theme

Recorded in Glasgow, October 18th 2000

In every solo, John plays (and this time accompanied by Jordan) a theme of the movie Gladiator, or something close to that.

• Medley: The Zoo (Scorpions) / Learning To Live / Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)

Recorded in Trier, October 13th 2000

Germany is the home country of the Scorpions, which undoubtedly inspired the band to play The Zoo. They are joined on vocals by a certain Michael Berger. A member of the local road crew? They also play a part of Whole Lotta Love, which is something that they do more and more, this time with James on vocals.

• End of the show

Recorded in Dallas, March 10th 2000

Mike thanks the road crew for their great work on this tour. A nice gesture to beautifully conclude this CD.

Originally written by Stephane Auzilleau from Your Majesty in France. Translation by Roots. Merci beaucoup, Stephane!