Dream Theater/Arion

Hammersmith Apollo, London

US/Canadian prog-metal kingpins Dream Theater have regularly visited this legendary concert hall, and they’re back for a victory lap to end a trek for their finest album in many years, A View From The Top Of The World. Most of tonight’s audience opts to stay out in the bar for the drab, perfunctory, keyboard-decorated power-metal of Finland’s Arion. It’s a wise call. Having played Wembley Arena a mere 10 months earlier, the headliners tweak tonight’s set slightly, though its thrust, which very much focuses on the heavier side of their oeuvre, remains identical. Often coloured by beautiful melodies, this is heavy-tread riffage delivered by a level of musicianship that not only leaves supposed rivals eating the band’s dust but wondering, ‘How the fuck did they just do that?’ And if James LaBrie’s voice sometimes sounds slightly ragged at the end of a long tour, well... as a non-instrumentalist he’s not onstage for the whole show anyway. Clocking in at almost an hour long, the final three songs – ‘Pull Me Under’, ‘A View From The Top Of The World’ and a succulent, drama filled encore of ‘The Count Of Tuscany’ – is a climax of near-religious proportions.

—Dave Ling