Live at the Marquee

Performer: Dream Theater
Artist: Jay Beckenstein
Engineer: Kevin Shirley
Producer: Kevin Shirley
Distributor: WEA (Distributor)

Notes: Dream Theater: James LaBrie (vocals, percussion); John Petrucci (guitar, vocals); Derek Sherinian (keyboards); John Myung (bass); Mike Portnoy (drums, percussion, vocals). Additional personnel: Jay Beckenstein (alto saxophone). Recorded live at Le Bataclan, Paris, France on June 25, 1998. Dream Theater finally released their first official live album, the double-disc Once in a Livetime (recorded June 1998 in Paris). Granted, the 1995 release A Change of Seasons contained a wealth of live material, but they were all cover songs, and 1994's Live at the Marquee was only available as a European import. With material spanning their entire career, the many die-hard Dream Theater fans will love Once in a Livetime, but it won't win over disbelievers to their highly technical, sometimes cold style. There's no denying that the band's musicianship is top-notch, but the songs often get repetitious and start sounding similar. But Once in a Livetime may be a breath of fresh air if you've had it with smug alterna-wannabes who can hardly play, or if you long for the glory days of Yes or ELP (in other words, the music punk rock tried to annihilate). Highlights include their instrumental tour de force "Ytse Jam," as well as the fan favorites "Pull Me Under," "Lie," "Metropolis," and certain portions of their lengthy "A Change of Seasons" composition. Also released in conjunction with Once in a Livetime was the home video Five Years in a Livetime. ~ Greg Prato This is a live recording featuring songs from When Dream and Day Unite and Images and Words. There really isn't that much going on here that can't be heard on the studio records. "A Fortune in Lies" is treated with more aggression than the original and remains one of their gems from the past. "Bombay Vindaloo" is a jam session that features some creative drumming from Mike Portnoy and some diverse playing from John Petrucci. Especially impressive were the muted, Al DiMeola-style quotes. "Another Hand - The Killing Hand" is a combination of an instrumental ("Another Hand") commonly featured in their live shows and the now-infamous "The Killing Hand." The latter is given a great update by singer James LaBrie and probably didn't have too many people missing Charlie Dominici. This is a good live session that will appeal mostly to the diehards of this excellent progressive metal band. ~ Robert Taylor

Dream Theater may not have been the very first to combine heavy metal's biting guitars with progressive rock's complex structures and virtuosic displays, but they were certainly at the vanguard of the prog-metal paradigm in the late '80s. By the '90s, they had become the definitive avatars of the genre. They were also the nexus for numerous prog supergroup offshoots, such as Transatlantic, Liquid Tension Experiment, and Explorers Club.

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