Musical styles come and go but the cores seem to stay the same. Unfortunately that doesn’t bode well for some sub-genres within a core style. Today’s Fallen Friday is a prime example of a band that had some greatness but ended up riding that for too long. In fact, in my opinion far longer than it probably should have by a long shot. Don’t think for a second that I don’t believe the musicians in Dream Theater aren’t talented because I know they certainly are. Talent alone cannot sustain a genre, even if that genre relies solely upon that talent.
Dream Theater is a progressive hard rock outfit. I have only two of their CD’s and they are their first two releases. I loved the first one, I listened to it over and over when I was learning to be a guitar god. The technical precision they had was astounding and I wanted that. I worked my ass off to get it. At least I did when I was arrogant and thought I knew everything there was to know about music. That’s the general attitude of most musicians when they’ve just gotten a degree in music from a good music school/college/university. A couple years out of school will cure that. Especially when it comes to putting food in your mouth and a roof over your head.
I still hold a desire to keep things toward the perfection of the music. But rather than killing the performance, I attempt to shoot for being able to go for the audience and not just the music. When you do that, often the perfection ends up going out the window. Dream Theater is an excercise in what to do to sound amazing on record but to bore the audience to fucking death. I finally got to see them live a couple of years ago. I was practically falling asleep standing there watching them. It was painful. The music was played to perfection, it sounded great, but they were statues on stage and had absolutely no stage character or charisma at all.
They have a precision that is matched by few. In fact right now the only band that I can think of that is even more precise is Electrocution 250, I’ve mentioned them before on Single of the Day. Dream Theater is essentially the overachieving child of say Rush. However, one thing Rush did that most of the bands that ended up borrowing from them did not, is learn how to write a captivating hook to connect commerically with the audience. While Rush is not the most energetic of bands, they do know how to captivate their audience.
I met John Petrucci at NAMM also a few years ago. I was cruising around with Jeff Soto and they sorta knew each other. John was a nice guy. I doubt I’ll forget his handshake, very limp and his hand pretty much felt like a soft sponge. Quite soft spoken too. A tad like Jekyl and Hyde in that his ability to crunch some heavy riffs is way over the top. As a personality it’s very much like the opposite of say Zakk Wylde. Zakk is quite aggressive and has a handshake that is crushing.
This particular song is probably the longest song I’ve ever had here on the blog. It’s also one of my fav’s by Dream Theater just because of all the different turns and twists it takes. It’s a veritable buffet of musicial clips and it works quite well to listen to – I wonder what it would be like if they had the live show of say Garth Brooks (an amazing live performer).
Dream Theater even had Doug Pinnick of King’s X come in and sing a song with them once. I think when I had heard that is when I decided DT had jumped the shark. I love Doug’s singing but that song wasn’t very good and Doug’s vocal was poorly recorded in my opinion. I couldn’t grudge Doug for it, he’s one of my favorite vocalists of all time, along with Freddy Mercury (whom I never got to see perform live).
For as much as I used to listen to Dream Theater and other bands like them, I can only do it in smaller doses now. One has to unleash their inner guitar god once in a while. This song certainly can justify that. The clip I’m playing is from Images & Words. Someone’s fantastic genius has left it off iTunes, so I linked to their live version instead. I’ve listened to a clip of that and it’s on par with the studio version you’re hearing here. If it’s not up to your taste, then I suggest picking up the actual CD. The whole thing is precise and amazing.
(** Disclaimer: If Dream Theater’s label decides that Metropolis isn’t big enough for the both of us, then I’ll have to delete the audio to make room. The post will remain, because after the images you’ll need my words. **)