Dream Theater - 'Quarantième: Live À Paris'

Pete Arnett
6 hours ago
2 min read

The whole thing is spellbinding from start to finish! Nothing short of sensational!

Surreal cover with Paris' Eiffel Tower amidst stormy skies. Sand foreground, peculiar objects, and "Dream Theater" text. Eerie atmosphere.

Without doubt, one of the most gifted bands to ever ply their trade in Rock or Metal in all its nefarious forms, Dream Theater are ostensibly “the” band responsible for inspiring the Progressive Metal scene that’s multiplied from the late eighties onwards. Since unleashing the mould-breaking ‘Images And Words’ in July 1992, they’ve gone on to craft a string of high-quality albums that have become the benchmark against which all others must be judged. Deftly combining crunching Metal with intricate Progressive themes, they remain the apex predators in the scene they largely defined.

Originally known as Majesty, the band has now been active for four decades, and to celebrate that very special anniversary, they’ve just unleashed a splendid and expansive live set, ‘Quarantième: Live à Paris’. Furthermore, what makes it that bit extra special, is that it also documents the live return of irrepressible drummer Mike Portnoy, thus reuniting (to my ears at least) the classic line-up of the band.

Anyone who’s ever seen a Dream Theater show will tell you that they always put on one hell of a show, something I can certainly attest to, having witnessed them captivate audiences many times over the years. This nineteen-track monster only reinforces that fact, in both audio and video (should you choose the CD/Blu-Ray option). As you’d expect, as it’s a celebration of their forty years in the business, it casts its net far and wide to pull in material which spans their entire career.

As the lights dim, an oh-so-familiar intro announces rapturous set opener ‘Metropolis Pt 1’, and what follows is ten-plus majestic (see what I did there?) minutes of America’s finest at their absolute, bombastically overblown best! If any track were to define Dream Theater, this surely has to be it, and the band revel in the chance to see the mesmerised looks on the faces of their audience – the interplay between John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess alone is worth the price of admission! But as always, there’s so much more to Dream Theater than that.

Where do I start? Firstly, James LaBrie... so often (unfairly in my opinion) adjudged to be the weak link in the band; his voice is strong and powerful as he leads the charge from the besieged emotional high ground. As for the songs, I could’ve picked a hundred more, and I’m sure they would have worked equally as well. However, what we do have here transcends “special”; the gloriously intoxicating, near fifteen-minute version of ‘Hollow Years’, for example, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up!

They come bang up to date with a malevolent ‘Night Terror’, eviscerate unbelievers with ‘The Mirror’, bedazzle with ‘Stream Of Consciousness’, batter your senses with ‘Under A Glass Moon’, and round it all off with a rousing ‘Pull Me Under’… and that’s just a taster.

The whole thing is spellbinding from start to finish! Nothing short of sensational!