gig review

Dream Theater

Prog-metal kingpins back with Mike Portnoy and to full strength.

Way up in the gods at the O2 some seats are empty, but tonight Dream Theater’s reunion with Mike Portnoy has got the audience in a right ol’ tizz. Back after 14 years away, Portnoy is much more than just their drummer, and the set-list he compiled for the band’s 40th-anniversary world tour is a perfect showcase for all of the US/Canadian group’s attributes.

Dream Theater are known for their obsession with the bombastic, propelling every element of their musicianly prog-metal to the extreme, and of course tonight all of the buttons are pushed. But over three hours of music, from opener ‘Metropolis Pt 1: The Miracle And The Sleeper’ to a finale of ‘Pull Me Under’, with the more melodious ‘Hollow Years’, ‘Vacant’ and ‘The Spirit Carries On’ they remind us that they can also do ‘haunting’ and ‘beautiful’.

With Portnoy consenting to performing material recorded with his replacement Mike Mangini, pretty much every area of Dream Theater’s long history is covered, plus there’s a preview of a wonderful new bruiser, ‘Night Terror’, that’s on a new album due in February. Portnoy later tells Classic Rock that, like that appetiser, Parasomnia will be “super-heavy and incredibly proggy”.

As well as hearing some great music, the sound at tonight’s show is truly amazing. Whoever is responsible should be given a pay rise.

—Dave Ling