Song is awful but labrie isn't actually too bad for once. Live at Budokan is still their best

Yeah, I actually agree.
Petrucci is rocking a sick beard these days.

they sure love live albums holy fuck

Considering how boring they were when I saw em in July, this is gna suck.

rock on

A 90 percent of their live albums are excellent, even the worst ones are pretty decent

^ I wouldn't want to see them play a four-hour set though, that's for damn sure.

Dude, that's pretty common in a big part of the live albums and concerts of this band. I enjoy with burning passion the four-hour sets despite the length

Should be better than the last one, drums sound a lot better at least.

If you are talking about the luna park concert that one was pretty solid

Score is by far my favorite live DT album, on it LaBrie is quite decent, the orchestral parts are very well-made and interesting, and the tracklist is excellent. Artwork for this one is pretty cool, bringing back the idea of a backing orchestra and choir could be interesting. But they seriously could have previewed a better song than this shit, or at least a song on which the orchestra actually adds something

Should be good, epic setlist for this tour and probably the best performance of the 3 times I've seen em

"But they seriously could have previewed a better song than this shit" I like the song, but the part at the end I really wanted to continue where it led into Trial of Tears haha

The looking glass is basiclly a carbon copy of rush

^That's because it's actually a tribute to Rush :P

And it was chosen to promote this release as it's their most recent single, makes perfect sense to me, even if it may be one of the weaker tracks in the set

Yeah I know, and makes sense, but they have more material which is more epic and original

I thought The Looking Glass was one of the stronger performances at the NYC show

I don't get the hatred why this song shouldn't be appreciated because it's a Rush "rip-off". That band, aside from the very recent Clockwork Angels, hasn't released a notable album in about 20+ years. I'd think after that amount of time, a song that resembles one of their main influences anyway should not receive such a negative response.

penis

The last time I saw them the performance of looking glass wasn't special, but the rest of the show was epic

@Hamburgerman: I don't care that the song is a Rush "rip-off", tribute, or whatever you call it; my complaint is that the song is not very good. The pre-chorus and chorus are cool, other than that, nothing stands out at all. And that's what happens everytime they do these "tribute" songs. I Walk Beside You was a U2 one, but the problem isn't that, the problem is simply that the song is not good, it's not well-made nor interesting. Same thing with Prophets of War being a Muse tribute or something

What a terrible album to do live.

This news is about 2 weeks old.

I don't see why there's so much hate for this album. It's standard Dream Theater, but they did it really well. I'll take it over the last 3-4 albums with Portnoy any day.

Anyways...didn't they just release a live album like last year, and then another one a few years before that? Jeez.

Nah this album was pretty lame. MP is the missing ingredient here, maybe if he learned to tone down his controlling tendencies he could've continued on with them.
I'm not not knocking any of them as musicians or as people, they seem like hard working, talented dudes but the last two albums haven't done it for me.

Album isn't that bad as people say it is.

The second half of it is actually quite decent, with Surrender to Reason being the strongest one imo. Behind the Veil, Along for the Ride and The Bigger Picture are both good for what they are, and Illumination Theory, despite being a disappointing for a 20-minute song, is still a great song. But the first four songs are barely listenable for me, they're just so uninspired and unoriginal

They were great when I saw them earlier this year. I miss Portnoy's stage presence, but they played very tight and all of the songs from Awake and SFAM were a real treat.

mangini looks like he is having a blast but does he sound off in parts to anyone else?

How many DVD's do they need? And those too with average to bad production