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As of 2014 the band consists of members: John Myung - Bassist, John Petrucci - guitarist and backing vocals, James LaBrie - lead singer, Jordan Rudess - keyboardist and composer and the final member Mike Mangini - drummer.
Dream Theater was founded in 1985 while students at Berklee College of Music; three friends Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and John Myung came together and decided to make music as a collective. They were later joined by members Kevin Moore as keyboardist and Chris Collins as lead vocals as the final and most current line up.
The band were originally called Majesty. While being a part of the band, the founding members found that it was beginning to clash with their studies, thus they decided that there was nothing more they could learn at the college and then decided to dedicate all of their time to music.
In 1986 while touring New York City the band began creating a string of demos which were very popular, they were titled 'The Majesty Demos' and within six months the 1,000 copies they created were completely sold out as their strength grew in the progressive metal scene.
In November 1986 Chris Collins was fired from the band and replaced by Charlie Dominici. The band increased the numbers of shows due to the talent of Charlie and their exposure grew and grew.
Majesty was forced to change their name as a Las Vegas band threatened to take legal action as it was a name owned by them before hand, thus the band went through discussions on what to name themselves, it was only when the father of Mike Portnoy suggested the name 'Dream Theater' due to him owning a small theater, the name liked this name and it became this.
Dream theater have released 12 albums as of 2014 with many of their albums being successful such as 'Images and Words' this album went gold and 'Awake' going platinum in Japan. The band have also gained much attention and have won awards such as Guitarist of the year, this was awarded to John Petrucci in 2007 by 'Total Guitar Paul Gillard'.
The band have done 27 tours and are currently on their 28th tour entitled 'Along For The Ride'.
I attended my 7th Dream Theater show at the historic Paramount Theatre in Denver this year. As always, the show left me feeling like I had just attended a clinic for each instrument played and at the same time I wanted more. The mark of a good show is leaving your audience with these feelings and Dream Theater did not disappoint then, nor have they ever. The music, for all its over-the-top soaring symphonic bombacity, is extremely easy to listen to (provided you are smart and wear hearing protection). My girlfriend, who is not a fan of their style of music, was very impressed by the show. Positives for this show were: 1) The new record is a lot more accessible to the casual fan and they played quite a few new songs. They were well rehearsed and included many impressive visuals. 2) The band were very receptive to the crowd and recognized very early on the "aeromatic" quality of the venue. 3) It is worth sticking around for the intermision. They played a collection of hilarious fan-submitted videos, most of which only a real DT fan would understand. 4) Awake is one of my favorite DT records, and they paid tribute to it by starting the second half of the show with a string of songs from the record. They blew the roof off the joint with The Mirror/Lie. 5) The whole show showcased their awesome instrumental talents and, suprisingly, James Labrie was in very good voice. On a lot of their live recordings, his voice comes off reedy and out of tune. Well done, James. The only negative was the venue itself. I've seen DT in places that could use a good wrecking ball taken to them and their music demands good acoustics. While the Paramount Theatre may be "historic," it is a bit of a dump. I had excellent seats and thorougly enjoyed the show, but would have enjoyed it a lot more in a quality venue. Perhaps the Paramount should transpose the "re" at the end of Theatre and not fool us into thinking it is an opera house. Overall, if I were to score the show on a 1 to 10 scale, I'd give it an 8-1/2, not a 10, just because of the venue.
scott-hume
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