8/29/06 -- Dream Theater -- Score

Yell03SpecV · #1 08-28-2006, 06:34 PM

I know I'm not the only one who will be scrambling to pick this up tomorrow morning. I wonder what tricks Myung had up his sleeve for the anniversary show.

Ian Perge · #2 08-29-2006, 02:41 AM

From a historical point of view, most likely being low/having a horrendous place in the mix.

Perhaps the trick will be decent tone?

To be fair, I doubt any bassist could cut through Portnoy's 30+ drums and cymbals, each of which much be miced and have its own track, 7-string and detuned guitars, and Jordan Rudess' layer-upon-layer of keyboard patches and left hand eat up all of Myung's space in the mix. It's a wonder we can hear him at all.

Best price I've found on the DVD thusfar: Best Buy instore for $14.99. Hope the info is of help.

bassist 4 life · #3 08-29-2006, 03:20 AM

Hm... Well, I've seen LAB and Scenes From A Memory, you can hear him pretty well...

They say Labrie rocks in this dvd, Labrie was a great singer but in 94 he had a severe vocal rupture from severe vomitting, and his voice is fully repaired a few months ago...

He used to rock befor ehe had it, his voice was really different.

Heres a video of him before the rupture :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-P2gDZjGeU

Yell03SpecV · #4 08-29-2006, 07:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian Perge

From a historical point of view, most likely being low/having a horrendous place in the mix.

Perhaps the trick will be decent tone?

To be fair, I doubt any bassist could cut through Portnoy's 30+ drums and cymbals, each of which much be miced and have its own track, 7-string and detuned guitars, and Jordan Rudess' layer-upon-layer of keyboard patches and left hand eat up all of Myung's space in the mix. It's a wonder we can hear him at all.

Best price I've found on the DVD thusfar: Best Buy instore for $14.99. Hope the info is of help.

Hrm. I've never had any problem identifying his place in the mix, ESPECIALLY live. I must say though, Tony Levin had so much more presence among the remaining DT trio on both Liquid Tension albums.

ergodynebass · #5 08-29-2006, 08:36 PM

I almost bought this cd today looked really good, unfortunately I picked up a live victor wooten cd instead, still good.

steve21 · #6 08-29-2006, 08:58 PM

I bought it (at bestbuy).

LOVED IT! All the songs were cool, some of them (Raise the Knife, Another Won) suprised me, I had never heard RTK and I only heard Another Won once on the Majesty Demos

John Myung's tone was nice, I only had my crappy Toshiba but tonight I'll plug into my computer and use headphones to get an accurate judge. But on his solos and whatever had nice tone, although I agree John's just got too much volume trying to push thru the mix instead of a nicer EQ.

John (Petrucci's) new EBMM guitar (the 20th anniv sillhoutte) was AWESOME! looked beautiful, sounded killer, all good. Can't wait for the new petrucci model Big Poppa has in development.

I think the entire show was a surpise, the orchestra, the 6DOIT, the Octavarium... beautiful, amazing, everything was touching. I can't wait for the next time they roll 'round here, I'm willing to sign up to the fanclub to get better tix.

BTW, anyone incredibly frightened of how big John Petrucci has gotten? He's buffed up a lot!

And one final thing... it looked to me like John Myung (And everyone else) was having a LOT of fun on this. Myung especially, I hadn't seen him move around very much, him and John even fretting each other's necks, all the cool little things looks like they ALL really had a lot of fun.

I'm a big DT fan, I guess.

And my post-script to this... DAMN LaBrie had such a great voice then... shame he lost it... I've always thought he was amazing, didn't even know about what happened... but his voice/precense/everything was a LOT better in this DVD, I can't wait to see him do "As I Am" live, cuz I definately think his harder vocals will be way better than Budakan's.

Snarf · #7 08-29-2006, 09:48 PM

I liked it quite a bit (saw it on VH1 Classic). This coming from a former proghead, now turned insufferable, usually dt-bashing jazz head. JLB's performance was pretty much perfect. Everything else was standard DT fare . . . meaning the only really good stuff was from the IaW and Awake albums. Oh, and that I V VI IV tune from the new album.

msquared · #8 08-29-2006, 11:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ian Perge

From a historical point of view, most likely being low/having a horrendous place in the mix.

I've had this complaint about him too.

It's not the drums. It's not the keyboards (he's had the problem since before Rudess came along). It's possibly the seven string overdriven guitar, but I'm skeptical.

I've always assumed that it's just that he does a lot of augmenting what the guitars or keyboard are doing, and since much of what you hear of the bass is harmonics anyway, it just gets buried. But I've never picked up a book of DT sheet music and checked that theory out.

Whatever it is, it needs to stop. The times that I can hear him it's fantastic. The guy could nail rubber bands to a 2x4 and make it sound great.

Ian Perge · #9 08-30-2006, 05:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by msquared

I've had this complaint about him too.

It's not the drums. It's not the keyboards (he's had the problem since before Rudess came along). It's possibly the seven string overdriven guitar, but I'm skeptical.

I've always assumed that it's just that he does a lot of augmenting what the guitars or keyboard are doing, and since much of what you hear of the bass is harmonics anyway, it just gets buried. But I've never picked up a book of DT sheet music and checked that theory out.

Whatever it is, it needs to stop. The times that I can hear him it's fantastic. The guy could nail rubber bands to a 2x4 and make it sound great.

To clarify, I was referring to his non-DVD tone - live or on bootlegs he's lightyears back in the mix.

I think it's a combination of all these factors. On the "When Dream And Day Reunite" DVD sold through DT's label (the current lineup performing the first album with LaBrie singing, of course) on the commentary track they discuss at length on how JM was a much different player on their earlier track, playing tensions, harmonics, arrpeggiated patterns, etc... along with a much different bi-amped distorted/clean sound. All of this got pushed out by producer David Prater during the recording of "Images & Words" to tighten up the low-end. To be fair it needed it - you had guitar, keys, and bass playing in the same register, but a uniqueness to his play was lost when he started to simply double Petrucci's lines.

On the equipment front, moving from Tobias and Tungs to his Yahama signature hasn't helped much IMO... and I'm saying this as the owner and lover of two Yamahas. He simple EQs his mids far too high, and to my ears there's no... nuance. It's like one big "THUD" as opposed to his Tungs, which sparkled with upper-range complexity.

My $.02, which is soon to cost more to produce that is worth.

dannoman · #10 08-30-2006, 05:28 AM

This is an AWSOME show. I got the CD and DVD. Myung sounds and plays great as do the rest of the guy's. And I like Jame's voice. I will admit that it is not for everyone, But i think it's great....

I am a huge dork when it comes to DT though....

Yell03SpecV · #11 08-30-2006, 07:10 AM

I won't over-analyze it -- LaBrie was explosive, and the whole show was great, namely Six Degrees.

Petary791 · #12 08-30-2006, 07:23 AM

Yesterday I went out and was the little fanboy I am, buying the CD and DVD. I only had to spend $19 though due to gift certificates and Best Buy rewards. I watched the whole DVD and I gotta say, it's probably their best one yet. The amount of energy they have is awesome. The venue looks killer. JP's new sig with the sunburst and Les Paul looking pickups is sexay. You can actually hear John Myung and his tone is pretty good. The drums sound HEAVY and JR's playing is, as always, awesome. Me love continuum.

The symphony was pretty good. Maybe it was me but they sounded a bit out of tune at times, but for every song they played on, i'd have to say they made it sound better. ESPECIALLY "Metropolis."

I really don't like their choice of songs off of 8V though. I kinda have a new respect for "Sacrificed Sons" though. It has some cool parts but also some really crappy parts.

bassist 4 life · #13 08-30-2006, 09:56 AM

How is Labries voice, aggressive?

steve21 · #14 08-30-2006, 11:22 AM

A lot of the songs on this didn't require the most aggressive voices,

But for instance in Another Won/War Inside My Head/The Test That Stumped Them All/Pt. IV of Octavarium he gets aggressive sounding very nicely.

SlavaF · #15 09-01-2006, 08:29 PM

I agree with Petary971, Score is their best one yet! I didn't really have high hopes for it after the dissapointing Live At Budokan, but luckily it's infinitely better. Everyone shines here, Labrie is in absolute top form, Portnoy bashes on the drums like I've never seen, and I take back every bad thing I ever said about JM... awesome performance, and he actually looks like he's having fun for the first time

Great performance on Octavarium especially.
Not a weak song in the whole show - but my favorites are definitely "Another Won" (great to have since the original isn't very good), the entire "Six Degrees" - they keep the energy level up for the entire f***ing 42 minutes. That's a feat in itself... and then there's the absolutely amazing last 3 songs: "Sacrificed Sons," which is a HUGE improvement over the studio version, same goes with "Octavarium," and "Metropolis" is the perfect end to the show, with the orchestra just mowing down everything in it's path!

I liked the DVD so much, I went out and bought the CD's today... and I don't regret it at all

Petary791 · #16 09-01-2006, 09:51 PM

I gotta say that "Raise the Knife" is one awesome song. Especially on keys.

Ian Perge · #17 09-03-2006, 04:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlavaF

Labrie is in absolute top form...

Studio "fixes" and overdubs after the fact help in that department.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petary791

I gotta say that "Raise the Knife" is one awesome song. Especially on keys.

Damn straight - I've loved that since they released it on the Xmas CD in '99, and always hoped they would pull it out at least once. Not only did they do so, but on a pro-shot release so I don't have to stuffer through the iffy quality of boots.

Yell03SpecV · #18 09-03-2006, 08:56 AM

Watched it agains last night. Petrucci is officially jacked. I know he's said he enjoys working out, but dear God -- a Petrucci tackle would kill someone. (someone should know what I'm talking about.)

nick g. · #19 09-03-2006, 12:12 PM

I dunno, Myung's tackling power must be pretty substantial. His arms are like marble sculptures.

Anyway, this is my favorite DVD evar.

Anyone who has crapped on DT or Myung on this board NEEDS to see this concert, as well as the documentary.

Yell03SpecV · #20 09-03-2006, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Random Basser

I dunno, Myung's tackling power must be pretty substantial. His arms are like marble sculptures.

Troof.