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Yeah, I just couldn't resist.

But, basically, I'm going to go to see Dream Theater on Monday the 24th, at the Apollo Hammersmith in London. I'm gonna take my digital camera and I'm going to make note of the setlist, and hopefully I should be able to get some photos with the band at the tour buses at the end! I intend to get a photo of myself hugging Jamesy. :X

Anyone else going?

We'll be expecting a full review including setlist, pictures, and a full-page written report you know. biggrin

That sounds a lot like what I would say, so don't feel too badly. xd

Eee, it's now the night before and I'm waaaaay too excited. I'm actually jumping around and squealing. I have everything ready. MP3 players for the journey from Gloucester to London, my Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and Octavarium booklets for autographing, a permanent marker also for autographing, digital camera, changes of batteries, clothes all laid out ready for changing into them quickly, alarm clock set for 5AM, mobile phone charged... Dear god, it's better than christmas. I actually cannot contain myself. If I had just a little less self restraint, then this post would just be a string of "omgomgomgomgomgomg." D: First concert... eee! I could go on for ages, but I'd be all babbley, and it's nothing you want to hear. "aaaaah, they're actually going to play the root of all evil live!" is the first thought that would come in, and then I'd be ranting about what parts I'm looking forward to and aaaaaaaaaaah D: I talk a lot when I'm hyper. :(

Well, they started off with The Root Of All Evil which was an incredible starter. I loved the animations of the landscape from the octavarium cover art that they played at the start. I'd actually felt slightly out of place at first; when everyone was yelling for the band to come on I was feeling slightly half-hearted and intimidated, but from the first note, I leapt out of my seat, and I was yelling every single word, clapping frantically... it was great. Then they went into Panic Attack, which was much of the same awesome, awesome, awesome stuff. D: Then they did something totally unexpected (for me) and turned off all the lights, except the video screens. There were noises like rewinding, and it went backwards through all the albums and the years until it got to "1985" and the cover art to the Majesty demos. Then James LaBrie started talking for a bit (someone pushed something onto the stage while he was talking, and he picked it up, studied it, and said to Mike Portnoy "give this guy a ******** drumstick or something" :D) before going into Another Won. This was shortly followed up by A Fortune In Lies, and then Under A Glass Moon, which had some wonderful images on the main screen of the moon and the sun and it was all very well done. They threw in a couple of odd instrumental bits here and there, too. Then they played Caught In A Web (with some especially neat drumming towards the end!), and then all the lights went out except on Jordan and Mike, who played something, which later prevailed to be part of a Pink Floyd song. I was wtfing for a little while, until eventually it segued into Peruvian Skies, at which point the entire crowd cheered. They played some Metallica at the end of it, before going and playing Fatal Tragedy flawlessly, and then playing ATCR and Losing Time, both of which were simply orgasmic. Then they had an intermission, followed by As I Am (complete with "Eat my a** and balls!") shortly followed by Endless Sacrifice - during which instead of the cartoony bit Jordan played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

I lost the rest of this post and now I'm absolutely enraged at gaia, and I really don't have the willpower to write it all out again, I'm so disappointed by having lost all the rest of it. I'll just leave with this...

Rest of the setlist:
Never Enough
Sacrificed Sons (with continuum)
Octavarium (cover to Dark Side of the Moon appeared at the end of Full Circle, with the majesty logo instead of the prism, which invoked a huge cheer from the crowd.)
Pull Me Under/Metropolis (changed song just before the solo to pull me under) (encore)

Other:
Didn't get to see the band, because it would mean standing in the rain for an hour and a half, and even if I did that it was unlikely they'd have stayed.

Now, I have to curse gaia for a bit for losing me my post by logging me out. D:

Picking up where I left off...

Never Enough: Strong performance, very well done, and featured the only slip-up of the night. :X Up to the spectacular standard of everything else, but there weren't noteworthy little extras.
Sacrificed Sons: I was impressed at Jordan's playing the continuum and the keyboard at the same time. Very nifty stuff here, and I think the extra bits he did with the continuum was great. The video screens had some very radical displays, too, though I'd have liked something a little more like the displays from ITNOG.
Octavarium: Started out with Jordan on both keyboard and continuum, and when JR eventually had to play the continuum with two hands, James LaBrie started to play a mini-keyboard. Medicate went down especially well, and I liked the images that went across the video screens for Full Circle. In Intervals, the images for every pair of lines were taken from the videos for the respective songs. E.g., frantic pacing for Panic Attack's bit, twin towers for Sacrificed Sons' "innocent victims of merciless crimes...", and from "step after step..." until the last "trapped inside this octavarium" it was a quickly flickering array of images based on the lyric book art, including an eight sided majesty logo sign emerging from a sea, and the dominos against the landscape from which the balls hung, among others. And, on that note, I believe that the four "TRAPPED INSIDE THIS OCTAVARIUM"s were the loudest I've yelled in my life. Full Circle onwards had the images from The Root's intro.
Pull Me Under: I almost thought they weren't doing an encore, and then suddenly the burning hearts appeared on all three screens and all was right in the world once more. Very good, I enjoyed it a lot. However, instead of the solo, they played...
Metropolis: ...everything from 4:16 in the studio version of Metropolis onwards, for an awesome finish. Images of London passing by on the main screens, naturally interspersed with images of the Dream Theater members playing.

I was very impressed by how well James worked the audience, and I liked seeing John Myung and John Petrucci sharing the centre stage a lot - Myung hadn't been very active for a long time up until now (I'd barely seen the guy move around at all on any DVD that was recorded after Images and Words) so it was great to see him really into it. At first, I felt slightly out of place, but from the first note of Root I was pulled straight in - I clapped, headbanged, threw my fist into the air and etc. with so much enthusiasm and frequency that my neck is stiff, I have all the arm movement of a geriatric with a fractured humerus (I couldn't actually brush my hair back from over my face on the bus trip back from London), and my hands hurt like hell just beneath my thumbs, but dear god, I don't regret a second of it, and I'd do it again in a flash. It's a testament to how well the concert went and how much everyone enjoyed it that it was originally to be an all seated concert, but I couldn't see a single person who wasn't standing all the way through. It was incredible.

Note also that when I got back in, I played Panic Attack on Winamp, a song that I'd always thought was pretty neat but kinda overrated, and thanks to the concert I actually couldn't help but pound the air when I put it on - and this is in spite of all the physical weaknesses I've now picked up.

Ten out of fugging ten.

Excellent review, Sabre. biggrin I remember my first concert was Def Leppard. Before they got on stage I felt a little out of place too, but when they finally took to the stage and started playing I was up on my feet jumping around like a maniac. xd

I would've killed to see LaBrie do the trapped inside this octavarium screams. m/

I was there too, and it was the most amazing concert I've ever seen. I was going to write a review of it but as it's already been done i'll just add a few small things.
As well as the big video screens, the lights gave it a lot of atmosphere. I loved the drums at the start of the root of all evil, when the big white lights flashed around the drum kit.
I also liked the bit from Octavarium with all the other bands album covers. I recognised some of the lines from that bit as being from other bands, and i'm guessing that they put up the albums they'd got them from.
From where i was i couldn't see James LaBrie playing the keyboard from where I was. I could just see him lurking behind Jordan's keyboard for no apparent reason.
And i imagine a lot of people would have stiff necks after that. Especially when they played the heavy bits from Peruvian Skies. The crowd around me were going mad. And people say Falling into Infinity is the weakest album confused
It was my first Dream Theater concert, and now i've seen how good they are live I'm already looking forward to seeing them again as soon as i can.