The Number of the Beast liner notes

When I met John Petrucci and John Myung in Sept of 1985, we had two immediate bands in common that were huge influences on all 3 of us. Both of these bands would pave the way for what we wanted our newly formed band’s sound and style to be modeled after. The first band (and probably most obvious) was Rush. The other was Iron Maiden.

I first heard of Iron Maiden sometime around 1982 when “The Number Of The Beast” was released and they were doing a US tour with Judas Priest who had just released “Screaming For Vengeance”. In my high school, most of the metal heads created some kind of friendly rivalry between Maiden and Priest (it was like the metal equivalent of The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones in the 60’s). You were allowed to like both bands, but ultimately you had to pledge allegiance to one or the other.... and as much as I dug Priest, there was no question that my loyalty was to Maiden. They had the POWER of the new wave of British Heavy Metal bands, but they combined it with a Progressive sensibility... writing long songs which incorporated complex instrumental passages, operatic vocals and great musicianship.

I remember covering a few early Maiden instrumentals with my first band Intruder (Transylvania, The Ides Of March & Genghis Kahn). And I vividly remember anxiously anticipating the release of the “new” Maiden album Piece Of Mind... picking it up on the day it was released and being blown away by their “new” drummer with the funny name. I remember seeing them live on the “World Piece” tour at the Nassau Coliseum that year with Fastway and Coney Hatch opening. (Trivia note: James LaBrie was to do some brief touring as the singer in Coney Hatch a few years later!)

This brings us back to Berklee in 1985...

When myself and the 2 Johns formed the band Majesty at Berklee, we started most of our rehearsals by jamming Maiden tunes... (The Trooper, Revelations, Hallowed Be Thy Name, Phantom Of The Opera, Remember Tomorrow, Wrathchild, To Tame A Land, etc.) One of us would start a song and the 2 others could easily jump in at any time and already know the whole piece off the top of our heads. I remember JP would tell me stories about how in high school, John Myung would spend days upon days locked in his room playing along to the Number Of The Beast album on 45RPM to build up his stamina!!! (For those of you CD files that never owned a record player, that means the turntable was sped up about 50% from its normal speed.)

In 2002, when DT began its tradition of covering complete classic albums from start to finish (for the 2nd set of the 2nd night at all 2-night stands), I immediately knew we had to do a Maiden album. For me it was a toss-up between “The Beast” or “Piece Of Mind”. Although 1 think POM might be the favorite album of mine and the 2 Johns, it seemed that Beast was really the quintessential, classic Maiden album from start to finish and the right one for us to cover.

We performed The Number Of The Beast album 3 times in 2002: October 21st in London England, October 24th in Paris France, November 7th in Athens Greece and then resurrected it for a 4th and final performance on April 24th 2004 in Osaka Japan. The night represented here in this CD is the Paris performance.

Although the surprise factor was ruined by having performed in 3 nights earlier in London (damn internet!), it didn’t stop the fan’s enjoyment as the Paris crowd was ELECTRIC from the opening moments of Vincent Price’s intro to the final chord of Hallowed Be Thy Name...

We’ve been privileged through the years to have developed a relationship with the Maiden guys both on and off the stage having played several shows with them in both 1992 and 2000... while also being joined on stage at various DT shows by Paul DiAnno (playing Killers in 1995), Bruce Dickinson (playing The Trooper in 1998) and Nicko McBrain (playing a drum duet with me in 1997 and playing soccer in 2002!).

They are a big part of Dream Theater’s history and their influence can now be forever immortalized in this CD...

Up The Irons,