Dream Theater, The Sony Centre For The Performing Arts, Toronto
The Sony Centre For The Performing Arts isn’t somewhere you’d expect to see a metal show, but Toronto suffers from a dearth of mid-size concert venues, especially ones open all year round. The all-seated auditorium holds a capacity of 3,191, making it pretty much the only place in the city that would accommodate a band of Dream Theater’s popularity level without being half-empty or needing a second night. Tonight, the place is packed. Dream Theater are currently on the tour cycle for their new record, Distance Over Time, but more excitingly, they’re commemorating 20 years since the release of Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory, which it’s safe to say is more of a fan favourite than anything they’ve put out this decade. It’s well-known that the second set of the evening will be the concept album played in its entirety. There’s just a bit to get through first.
The hour-long first set consists of six songs, four of which are off the new album. They get a decent reception, but when the intermission ends and the ticking that starts off Regression kicks in, a roar comes from the crows as if the show is just beginning. The second set is really the main event here. The band sounds incredibly tight, which is no easy feat considering the material they’re performing. With only one speaking break during the entire set, between Through Her Eyes and Home, they perform the music exactly as it is on the album, much to the fans’ pleasure. With and the few breaks the musicians get lasting only a few seconds, they still never manager to run out of steam. The seamless transitions between songs are particularly impressive tonight, and seeing the band make the technically challenging playing look so effortless is awe-inspiring. The band is on top form.
The same can’t be said for vocalist James LaBrie. He has bursts of energetic movement and powerful vocals, but these are few and far between, and he spends the majority of his time onstage leisurely strolling back and forth and getting a little too lazy when it comes to the longer and higher notes. At times it’s not even clear if he’s annunciating the words, or singing the actual words for that matter. Then again, he does leave the stage for up to around five minutes at a time many times throughout the show, leaving the stage and crowd in the hands of his bandmates.
A show could easily be ruined by a weak vocalist, but in this case, it doesn’t matter so much. The band plays so well that LaBrie’s lazy performance is one of the later things you’d think of recounting this show. Of course, some better showmanship on LaBrie’s part would have improved the show, but the rest of the band made up for what he lacked, ad then some. 8/10
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