Dream Theater
Live Scenes from New York

THE REVIEW

“...Close your eyes and start to relax, take a deep breath and slowly breathe out, focus on your breath. With every breath, you will feel more relaxed. Imagine a dazzling white light on you, concentrate on this light as if it is flowing through your body. Let yourself fall into a deep state of relaxation... now I will count from 10 to 1 and you will feel calmer and more at ease. TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX... now you will enter a safe place where nothing can harm you... FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO... whenever you want to return, all you have to do is open your eyes... ONE!!”
After that, we find ourselves enveloped in a fog, feeling lost, but after a few seconds there’s Mike Portnoy, aka the human clock, informing us that our calendar has done a nice “regression” back to the distant 1928... our man's drumsticks signal that it's time to start, to make a lovely “Overture” on our past... let’s go!!

This is how this fantastic journey backward begins, brought to life "LIVE" by our little dream theater... the scenes of poor Nicholas's suffering soul are brought to life in this album, in a New York encircled by the five musicians. The setlist of the New York concert includes the complete performance of the album “Scenes from a Memory,” but it doesn't stop at a mere and dull live execution. Within the tracks, there are some light changes and rearrangements in the score. “Fatal Tragedy” is performed in a distinctly darker style... but in my opinion, their best performance on the album reaches its peak in the extraordinary “John & Theresa solo spot.” This would be the intro to “Through Her Eyes” which deviates for 3 unreal minutes where the singer Theresa, lending her enchanting choral voice to the track, marries with the magnificent and magical “blues” guitar solo in the background by the incredibly skilled Petrucci. Truly extraordinary and singular is the result, I have never personally heard something so highly harmonic and passionate at the same time!! After that, the magnificent track begins, and through Victoria's eyes, we try to understand her life and the reason for her untimely and pointless death... impeccably executed and enriched by a grand guitar solo by our previously mentioned talented guitarist, which is NOT at all self-serving but demonstrates the endless passion for performing the track, embellishing and adorning it with artistic depth and especially a lot of soul!... once the album's execution is over we certainly can't remove the CD from our player, goodness, our people still have gems to play and going backward even more, we start from where it all began, from "Metropolis pt. 1" exquisitely proposed on an evening that must not stop the fans present from continuing to dream!

Among other tracks played, the ones worth mentioning in my opinion are the dazzling “Acid Rain” (Liquid Tension Experiment II), the magical and enchanting “Another Day,” but above all the complex and engaging “A Change of Seasons.” Here, in particular, the artistic flair of the D.T. bursts forth, an elegant song rearranged live with many different arrangement hints... but around the 12th minute... instead of that little jazz-prog set, we humorously find some solos originating from the three key minds of the group, Myung starts with a little fast-paced set and ends his solo with an energy worthy of the bersaglieri, Petrucci continues with the well-known "Simpson" theme and the solistic parabola is concluded by master Rudess, with a piano-solo worthy of an opening theme for a candid camera show!
With the entire song, the concert closes, surely the best live album ever released by Dream Theater, and now we can finally wake from the dream that captured us for all these 3 CDs!!

Every enchanted instrument is in the right place, properly amplified. Fabulous the distortion used by Myung on bass for the entire concert's duration, very cool in my opinion! Very dark and fairly distorted sounds for Petrucci's guitar. Omnipresent keyboard throughout the live, a task performed by Rudess, whose immense artistic talent beautifully merged with the Boston theater's compositional style. Drums excellently played by the human metronome Portnoy, quite improvised in many parts, but he can afford it!! Finally, James LaBrie's vocals, just 8 years away from that mad voice of London’s “Marquee Club,” but he also receives a well-deserved outstanding mark just like the other band members!!

It could have been a special day to remember for all of us fans, the release of this fantastic "Live Scenes from New York," yet the very release day of the album, September 11, 2001, will be remembered as a cursed date in the world for other and obvious reasons that we all know...
Are you still here reading? RUN IMMEDIATELY TO LISTEN TO THIS FANTASTIC CD!!!