Originally published in Prog magazine (UK) 89 · July 2018
Ross Jennings comments
Article1 min read
Live album aficionado Ross Jennings selects his all-time favourite concert recordings from prog artists old and new, spanning four decades and three continents…
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Dream Theater – Live Scenes From New York (2001)
“Without doubt one of my biggest influences, one of the main reasons I’m doing this, is Dream Theater. This is over three hours of music over three discs. They play arguably their best album, Scenes From A Memory, in full, along with other selections from their repertoire. Charlie [Griffiths, Haken guitarist] was at that show and I wish I’d been there too.
“My CD copy of this is completely weathered: it’s probably the most used disc in my collection. Some guy introduced me and Rich [Henshall, Haken’s other guitarist] to Dream Theater at a rock club and they completely blew me away. I hit HMV the next day and grabbed as many albums as I could.
“John Petrucci’s guitar solo spots always get to me, and there’s a great one before ‘Through Her Eyes’. In those days we thought Kirk Hammett was the world’s best guitarist, but John opened a new set of doors. James LaBrie’s vocal solo spot is mesmerising too. He’s a big influence on me, and the stamina he has to pull this show off is impressive.
“Listening to all this complicated music being played so perfectly and passionately is just fantastic. Again, it’s a great entry point for those who don’t know Dream Theater well. They played ‘Acid Rain’ from Liquid Tension Experiment, who I wasn’t aware of before, so it also introduced me to Mike Portnoy’s extracurricular activities.
“The encore’s ‘A Change Of Seasons’, and it’s the end of an incredible, epic night.”