Band(s): Progressive Nation 2009

Date: 2009-08-01

Venue: Merriweather Post Pavilion

City, State: Columbia, MD

Reviewer: Nick

Official Dream Theater Website

Official Zappa Plays Zappa Website

Official Bigelf Website

Official Scale the Summit Website

    If I take off of work, then get up before 10am on a day off, and then travel nearly three hours to Maryland, there better be a damn good reason for it. On the first day of August I had that reason, a special outing of Dream Theater’s Progressive Nation tour that would be the only show to feature Queensrÿche as an additional act to the festival’s usual lineup.  Due to an 11pm curfew, and the then five bands playing that night, the festivities were to kick off at 4:30, and I did not want to miss any of it. So after a long journey and some tailgating I made my way to my seats just after 4:00.

    Scale the Summit came on at 4:30 sharp and for half an hour they took the audience by storm. Thanking the fans that came early, the band, including drummer Pat Skeffington who was celebrating his 23^rd birthday at the show knew how to throw the right kind of party; complete with intense drum patterns, amazing guitar tapping melodies, and a lot of intense grooves. Although it was quite early for a show to start, the boys still managed to receive a standing ovation from a more than half full pavilion. After Scale left the stage, a pair of vintage organs were brought center stage, and Bigelf stepped out into the bright light of the early evening. Opening as they did the day prior with “The Evils of Rock & Roll” the band told the crowd afterwards that the song was being filmed to be turned into a video, and it will certainly be a performance I would like to see again! If Scale the Summit was a fresh face on the instrumental progressive metal market, Bigelf were a big reminder of what a lot of prog fans loved about the heavier prog coming out of the 1970’s. A lot of heavy, yet easy rockin’ riffs with fantastic organ work that you could bang your head to. Although for this set the band dropped my favorite song from the previous night, “Blackball”, their set was still fantastic, and made me remember that I need to pick up more than just their newest album, which is all I currently own.

    Next, the special event of this particular show, Queensrÿche would take the stage. Unfortunately they took an overly long time to set up, and near the end we saw roadies come out to scratch songs of their set list due to the delay, but for now let’s focus on what did get played. The band opened with “Neue Regal”, and now after seeing them open with it twice I still can’t decide whether or not it is a fantastic of a horrible opener. I can’t help but feel that a more straight forward rocker like “Walk in the Shadows”, which was played later in the Rage For Order suite would serve as a better opener. “Screaming in Digital” and “The Whisper” rounded out the Rage suite, the former of which was a very good choice considering the progressive tendencies of the crowd. Now before I go into the American Soldier suite of Queensrÿche set, I feel there is a little back story I need to tell. About a month before this show I was forced to sell a ticket I had bought for a friend and it ended up going via ebay to a Marine based down in Virginia who I found out at the show was a casual Queensrÿche fan, but was not familiar with the new album. I can safely say that by the end of the suite Queensrÿche had made a new hardcore fan. From the opening scream of, “ON YOUR FEET SOLDIER!” to the final notes of “Home Again” you could see that the band did a fantastic job in connecting with this particular member of our armed services. The connection seemed strongest when vocalist Geoff Tate explained the story behind “A Dead Man’s Words”. Also played during the set was “Man Down”, the only Ryche song of the night I hadn’t seen before and honestly I wasn’t really blown away with its live performance, nor was it ever one of my favorites on the album. Although it was being played at every other show in America, I have to say I was a bit surprised to see “Home Again” in the set, simply because Tate’s young daughter was on tour to sing the duet with her father, and it would be one of the largest audiences she would sing to, but the really important factor is that it would be the first time she would be singing to an audience that was not primarily Ryche fans. But she did well and received the biggest ovation of the night aside from two songs later when the band would leave the stage. The set would end with two songs that were easily the two to get the best initial response, “Best I Can” and “Empire. Although I have to say it was sad this time around not to see Queensrÿche from under ten feet away, it was made up for by the fact that at this particular amphitheater the sound was about a billion times better than when I last saw Queensrÿche at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, NJ. It seems that Queensrÿche pumps out enough sound to play for an amphitheater every night, unfortunately that doesn’t work to well when all that sound is placed into a small club. In any case the band put on a short, but strong show that seemed to make the hardcore Ryche fans and a lot of guys wearing Dream Theater and Zappa shirts very happy.

    Next up was Zappa, a band I had skipped the night before in Upper Darby, a decision I’d come to regret on this night. After a nice introduction into what Zappa Plays Zappa is by Dweezil Zappa, the band kicked into what would be over an hour of eclectic goodness. While I cannot see myself becoming a huge Zappa fan, I could very much appreciate both the amazing musicians up on the stage, and the obvious influence Zappa had on many contemporary bands I love, especially Beardfish, who were originally supposed to be on the festival. It’s also refreshing to someone like me, who doesn’t really factor lyrics into his rating of music to hear songs about moving to Montana to raise dental floss and become a dental floss tycoon. It is really fascinating how the music of Frank Zappa can be so carefree, and yet many people see it as defining the word “progressive”, and after sitting through the nights set I can really see why.

    After Zappa cleared off the stage the setup for Dream Theater began, and as advertised the intro music began to play at 9:20 sharp. As with the previous night the band tore into “A Nightmare to Remember”, and unlike the previous night, this time the curtain came down as planned, and John Myung and John Petrucci strode forward to a frantic and excited crowd. For the second night in a row the song proved to be an energetic opener. After that the band went straight into “Prophets of War”, and I must say that despite how much I enjoy this song, up until the chorus kicks in you can truly feel a lull in the crowd reaction. Kind of the same vibe fans gave last tour to “I Walk Beside You”, even though they eventually get into it a bit for the first while they really give the impression that it certainly is not a favorite song of the masses. In any case this is my review and I found the song to be great live once again, and I really hope this isn’t the last tour we see it in the set. Next up was “Sacrificed Sons”, a song which I really enjoy on the album, but I found myself having somewhat of a problem with it. The video component to the song really helps drive home the lyrics and the feel of the song, but the instrumental section seems overly long and pointless live and it seemed to take away from the emotion of the song a bit.

    However things kicked back into full gear when James LaBrie introduced “A Rite of Passage” and a few moments later everyone, including me, was back into the show. There are some songs that you know are going to get played almost every night, and with some you wish it wasn’t the case, however “A Rite of Passage” is a song I can always see myself wanting to spare eight minutes of set time for, even if it isn’t one of my favorites on the new album. I also think moving it to the middle of the set, as opposed to right after “Nightmare” as was the case the night before was a great idea. After “Rite” came some instrumental goodness as the band went into what is arguably their craziest instrumental, “The Dance of Eternity”, which then flowed into one of their simpler songs, “One Last Time”. It was my first time seeing both songs live, and both left separate but definite impressions on me. “The Dance of Eternity” reaffirmed my view on how tight the four instrumentalists can be live, even during the toughest of songs, and “One Last Time” really showcases how well the band can take a simpler melody driven approach and drive it home to an audience. I certainly think that if the band is going to play one of these songs live, it should certainly be with the other as they do a very nice job of complimenting one another.

    As the final notes of “One Last Time” rang out I noticed John Petrucci strapping on this double neck guitar and knew it could only mean one thing… A few moments later Portnoy was stomping on the bass drum and getting fans to clap along as John Petrucci strummed the twelve string neck of the guitar and started into “Solitary Shell”. One of the most chilling intros in Dream Theater’s catalog the song has a mesmerizing effect live, and the extended and for the most part casual solos added near the end put a nice new spin on the song. Now it’s time for a little bit of back story and one of my biggest complaints about the entire evening. During the entire show, the camera in charge of filming Jordan Rudess’s keyboard was angled in a way that it revealed part of the set list. Now I was able to turn my head for awhile, but eventually seeing it became unavoidable, and I noticed the last song before the encore started with “In the”. As someone who was tracking Dream Theater’s sets throughout the tour I knew that the only song that started that way had not been played yet, so I remained somewhat mystified whether it was the song I was thinking about, or some introductory text. Well it ended up being “In the Name of God”, which was a fantastic surprise, but I would much rather have been surprised by the opening notes of the song than by poor camera placement. In any case I have always said you will have a hard time beating songs from Train of Thought live, and this performance was no exception. Simply so many awesome riffs and moments to bang your head to during the song, and the performance was top notch, seemed everyone in the band was into the tours debut performance of the song.

    After “In the Name of God” concluded Dream Theater briefly left the stage before returning and playing “The Count of Tuscany” as their encore. I noted in the review of the previous night that the song worked incredibly well as a set closer, and as reason would predict it also worked well as a show closer. Some laugh at the lyrics, but pretty much everyone at the show seemed to get into the music, and you could really feel a sense of ending, and of closure as the song built back up before the final verses and eventually came to a conclusion.

    In the end I’d have to say performance wise I was a tad happier tonight than I was the previous night in Upper Darby. The extended part of “Solitary Shell” seemed very fresh, and somewhat different for the guys, they played their hearts out during “In the Name of God”, and James LaBrie was very good and seemed much more consistent than on the previous night. That combined with the fantastic performances from all the other bands made it a terrific night with a lot of different but amazing music. As I write this I am one day away from my final Progressive Nation experience in Asbury Park at which I will be 6^th row, the closest I’ve ever been for Dream Theater, and I’m looking forward to seeing the festival from that somewhat more intimate setting so close to the stage.