Mike Portnoy’s Drum Theater Update

Hi all! This time we continue with an update on all things in Mike’s drum world – as always, he’s been a busy guy! Quite a bit to report on this time so, as James would say:
...without further ado...”

September 18th 2005 saw Mike debut his third covers/tribute project, Cygnus and the Sea Monsters – a homage to the almighty Rush! This was one that I had looked forward to particularly as I got into DT in 1992 through The Spirit of Rush fanzine (sadly no longer in production).

Mike had been invited to perform in Chicago by the owners of local specialist drum shop The Drum Pad and used this as an opportunity to get together (for one night only) the musicians for Cygnus – Paul Gilbert (Mr. Big, Racer X, solo artist}, Sean Malone (Gordian Knot) and Jason McMaster (Watchtower, Dangerous Toys, Broken Teeth) – additional keys and samples were provided by DT video mastermind Bert Baldwin.

Mike needed an appropriate kit of course and with the help of the owners of The Drum Pad, Tama and Sabian amongst others, a replica of Rush drummer Neil Peart’s Candy Apple Red “Signals” era kit was created – it truly was a sight to behold in its tangerine finish.

Drums

All of the drums were Starclassic Maple shells, sizes were as Neil’s kit – Mike used his 14” (black finish) Melody Master snare (the normal Remo Ambassador head being replaced with a CD Clear Dot just like Neil had on his kit at the time) and a pair of Starclassic TympToms were used as timbales to Mike’s left.

Hardware

Hardware was all Tama of course (Neil used a mix of manufacturers) and some pretty clever work was done to suspend the 18” crash over the 22” ride and also the 8” splash over the cowbells. A hoop mounted holder for the 10” splash was in place (just like Neil’s kit) and the 12” tom holder was offset on the left kick drum exactly as Neil had – the attention to detail was phenomenal.

Heads

The heads on the rest of the drums were also all Remo as Mike is an endorsee (Neil tended to use a mix of Remo/Evans) – CS Black Dots on the concert toms, Pinstripes on the closed toms, Emperors on the two Gong Basses and TympToms and Powerstroke 3’s on the kicks.

Percussion

Percussion was pretty faithful to the Peart kit too, except that Mike’s kit had all Latin Percussion items – Granite Blocks, three triangles, four sets of bar-chimes and a set of hand chimes, bell tree and cowbells... additionally, there was a glockenspiel to Mike’s left and a set of orchestra bells behind, which he put to good use!

Cymbals

Cymbals were a complete set of Neil’s Sabian “Paragon” line and a Sabian crotale just to the right of the hi-hat. All of the cymbals were secured with the Vater version of “Slicknuts” except the front two (10” splash and 16” crash}, which had normal Tama “Cymbal Mates” (those of you that have seen the footage of Mike’s solo in “YYZ” may have spotted the Vater “Slicknut” falling off of the top of the 8” splash as Mike gives the cowbells a hammering!).

NB – as mentioned in previous articles, Mike is not endorsed by Vater – they bought the Slicknut concept off of the Slicknut company, but Slicknut retained the acrylic version of the product – it’s this that Mike uses and Slicknut that he is endorsed by.

Mike had a custom drinks table made too by the Drum Pad people – it’s the white/red octagon shaped unit as used by Mike in the subsequent legs of the Octavarium world tour – very cool it is too!

There is a DVD of this show available exclusively from the store at MP.COM – it is well worth obtaining whether you are an MP /DT or NP /RUSH fan – also The Drum Pad has its own DVD of the whole day, featuring many other drumming genii along with select coverage of the Cygnus set – this is available from their website.

The band rehearsed one day for this performance. Mike had to adjust to the kit of course and has said that in retrospect, he felt he could have benefited from another day to get used to the set-up, but he pulled off an amazing performance anyway!

A month or so after this show, Mike was presented with the Cygnus kit by the staff of The Drum Pad – this kit now resides in Mike’s drum room at his home.

Mike also recorded drums for the OSI album Free and used a super-compact kit which consisted of the 20” kick (custom made for the G3 US shows in 2001 and same finish as the red monster}, 13” tom (from red monster}, 12” Melody Master snare and one of his LP timbalitos. Cymbal-wise he had the 22” ride, a 9” Max Splash, a set of Low Stax, 13” Groove hats, three crashes and a china – pretty simple set-up for some of Mike’s most straight-ahead recorded performances!

In 2006, we continued to see Mike busying himself with myriad projects/tasks – he is such an amazingly BUSY guy! Here’s a list of some of the things he’s been up to:

Once the Radio City Music Hall, NY show was done, Mike dove right into directing what was to become the Score DVD – this has now been out for a couple of months or so as I write and I have to say, it is a work of genius! The band were totally on top of their game for this show – I can’t see/hear anything “wrong” at all and Mike has succeeded in creating a DVD that is interesting and dynamic to watch.

The only specific kit/performance observations I have related to the RCMH show are that the Roland Rhythm Coach (RMP1) which he uses to count the band in at times during the show (and for lighting cues) moved slightly to the left, a special microphone was used on the 18” floor tom for the intro to “Root of all Evil” (so the strobes were in unison) and the very sensible decision was made to mount cameras braced by Mike’s rack both sides of his kit – these worked very well – someone did a great job of mounting them as there is no movement at all.

The “Holz” porthole on the 26” (small kit) kick drum changed colour from white to black – Eric decided it looked better black to match the darker colours of that front head.

The rear-view mirrors Mike had set up were for him to be able to observe what the conductor (Jamshied Sharifi) was up to and cue accordingly.

I think Mike’s performance at this show was truly awesome – he was right on the money with his overall playing, fills, showmanship and I’ve never seen him do so many stick bounces {virtually all of which he caught too!) – even his one stick toss into the audience was with his left hand and seemed to go to exactly who he aimed for – amazing!

One of the best “MP moments” on the DVD is at the end of 6 Degrees when Mike hits the gong – he has the presence of mind to swing his vocal mic out of the way before he picked up the mallet to hit the gong then he had to position himself so as it didn’t swing forward and hit him in the back... incredible and just another example of how (at least to the audience) everything went like absolute clockwork.

Mike was back in the studio with Neal Morse in May – as I write, the album he was recording with Neal is untitled and is in the mixing stage, but drum-wise he used the exact same kit he has used for all of his NM/Transatlantic work in Nashville – this kit was originally owned and supplied by US drum rental company Drum Doctors, but Mike used it so often that Neal bought the kit and Mike had Sabian supply a full set of cymbals to go with it. Now, when Mike records with Neal (as in this most recent case}, his kit is ready installed in Neal’s home studio.

I have covered the configuration of this kit before, so I won’t repeat myself here, but it is the Starclassic cherry black kit as used on all Neal Morse solo albums that Mike has recorded, as well as TA’s Bridge Across Forever album.

Mike’s most recent (and possibly last) tribute project went out on the road in May 2006 – The Amazing Journey tribute to another of Mike’s BIG influences – The Who. They played three shows across the US – again he was joined by Paul Gilbert on guitar but this time Billy Sheehan was on bass and Gary Cherone was on vocal duties – I suspect a DVD/CD will be forthcoming of these shows too, but as I write, no firm news (Ed. See MP ‘s comments in this issue with regard to this).

Mike was ill for some of the time these shows were played with a throat infection, but by all accounts, this didn’t affect his performance. The first show, he played a Tama Rockstar kit (this was used in rehearsals too) and was pretty much totaled at the end of the opening night when (in true Who tradition}, the gear was given a pasting, leaving (mainly) a sorry mess of drums and cymbals, along with an injured Mr. Cherone, who cut his head when he caught it on one of the pieces of drum debris left on the stage – he was fine for the next show however!

The other two shows saw MP playing a white Starclassic kit which had additional concert toms mounted in front of the closed rack toms (just like Moonie’s kit configuration in his last days with The Who) – this kit survived the whole mini-tour I believe! Notable for both of these set-ups, is that Mike did not use a hi-hat so that he remained faithful to Keith Moon’s approach to rock drumming!

Mike continued to work over the summer break on his latest Hudson Music instructional DVD In Constant Motion. It was recorded at Allaire Studios, Shokan, New York State (the same venue that Hudson used for Neil Peart’s Anatomy of a Drum Solo project) – Mike was very impressed with the studio and at one point DT considered using Allaire, but in the end they decided to stick with their original choice of working in New York City.

This DVD will surely be the ultimate MP product. It is slated at over 5 hours duration and will see Mike using different kits, one of which is a Tama “Mirage” acrylic kit for the Neal Morse/Transatlantic songs featured – Mike was very impressed with the sound of the kit – the “Mirage” line may well be something Mike considers for a future DT kit... watch this space!

Dream Theater entered a New York studio with engineer Paul Northfield at the beginning of September 2006 to work on their ninth studio album – Mike used the “Albino Monster” for this session – the spec was exactly as it was at the RCMH final Octavarium tour show – except for the cameras and rear-view mirrors!

Currently (as I write) Mike and JP are in South America playing the first of two G3 mini-tours. Mike’s regular tech (Eric Disrude) is not out with him on these dates – instead, kit duty is being looked after by his original tech, Jose Baraquio – he is fulltime tech with Joe Satriani’s drummer, Jeff Campitelli.

Mike had Tama supply him with four kits for the South American leg of the G3 tour in October 2006 – these were mostly Superstar kits in a variety of finishes and the configuration was the same as the NM/TA kits. For the first shows in Mexico, Mike had his white Melody Master snares in place instead of the more common black finished drums. Floor toms were used on most kits rather than hanging toms. Notably, the G3 “Live in Tokyo” DVD featured the same arrangement too – Jose teched for Mike. This time, Tama provided a Starclassic Performer in Diamond Dust finish – pretty much the same spec as the NM/Transatlantic kits, but floor toms (instead of hanging toms) were used and an extra crash added to Mike’s right.

So, there we have it for now – my thanks as always to Mike and Eric for answering my questions and providing me with exclusive photos!

Until next time – “...keep ‘em peeled!”