DREAM THEATER
VENUE EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON DATE 21/02/2023
It’s been less than a year since Dream Theater last visited London: the prog metal pioneers played Wembley Arena in April 2022, so that might help to explain the gaps in the audience at the Eventim Apollo. There are not only scattered empty seats among the crowd, but entire rows that remain unoccupied all night. Perhaps it was too soon for a return engagement? Or the vacancies may be the result of the fact that they’re still touring the same album, 2021’s A View From The Top Of The World. There’s also a fair bit of overlap in the setlist between this performance and the April 2022 Wembley date – five of the songs on the 12-song menu tonight were performed on their last visit.
However, none of that dampens the enthusiasm of those fans who have come out for the last night of the tour. Dream Theater’s setup is distinctly modern and minimalist. There are no amps onstage, only Petrucci has monitors, everyone else is wearing in-ears, and John Myung has what appears to be an iPad at his spot, presumably with charts on it as he glances at it regularly throughout the performance. The backdrop is a series of hanging sheets of white fabric that provide a segmented screen for the video animations that accompany all the music. The overall effect looks slick and clean, although the video for Caught In A Web is an arachnophobe’s nightmare, as giant spiders skitter across the walls.
The band open with The Alien, the first of four pieces from A View From The Top Of The World. The mix is loud and aggressive, but it does sacrifice James LeBrie’s singing in favour
“IN THE AGE OF BACKING TRACKS IT’S REFRESHING TO WATCH A PERFORMANCE WHERE IT’S EVIDENT THAT EVERY NOTE IS PLAYED AND SUNG.”
of sheer volume. His voice battles to cut through the combination of John Petrucci’s guitar and Jordan Rudess’ keyboard, which are the strongest personalities in the mix and it’s slightly frustrating struggling to hear the lyrics in all but the quietest moments. However, to LaBrie and the band’s defence, in the age of backing tracks it’s refreshing to watch a performance where it’s evident that every note is played and sung, so if a slightly unbalanced mix is the price to be paid for that, then it’s arguably worth it.
LaBrie is on enthusiastic form, working the audience right from the off, although he often leaves the stage during the longer solos. New tracks The Alien, Sleeping Giant and Answering The Call are warmly received, but it’s the old favourites and the longest, most ambitious pieces that provoke the greatest responses from the crowd. 6:00, from 1994’s Awake, goes down a storm, and the final three movements of 2002’s Six Degrees Of
Inner Turbulence – Solitary Shell, About To Crash (Reprise), and Losing Time/Grand Finale
– earn the band their first standing ovation. The clean guitar tones of Solitary Shell are a welcome change of pace from the prog metal shredding that dominates the set. Pull Me Under is now more than 30 years old, but is greeted with a huge swell of excitement, while A View From The Top Of The World
features the biggest instrumental workout of the night, adding in some dynamics as Rudess and Petrucci are left alone onstage in the midsection. After that epic, they encore with The Count Of Tuscany, from 2009’s Black Clouds & Silver Linings, throwing in a cheeky snippet of When You Wish Upon A Star.
In one of his occasionally meandering chats between songs, LaBrie says that Dream Theater likely won’t return to the UK for another two years, to allow the quintet time to make a new album. That may be a bitter pill to swallow for those who opted to sit this one out for whatever reason, but there’s no doubt that Dream Theater sent the attendant fans home feeling fully satiated tonight.