What's with the "Rank"? By Joe's standards, I give this show a 7. All concerts ever, I give it a 7. Dream Theater was a refreshing surprise. Each member was incredibly tight as they took turns assaulting us with musical pyrotechnics. Not very catchy, but blinding in execution. They even had strobing light effects to complete the siezure-inducing barrage. I was afraid their fingers would catch on fire. The bassist is a freak – his fingertips widen like a frog’s. His hands look like spiders on crack! The new keyboardist (maybe he’s new – I haven’t followed them since I saw them in 1992), Derek Sherinian, was cool – he was the most animated of the bunch. John Myung, John Petrucci & Mike Portnov let their fingers command the audience. Doug Pinnick from King’s X joined vocals in Lines In The Sand. New Millenium was cool. Anyway, they were pretty impressive – especially since I wasn’t really psyched about them splitting the bill with Joe. I’d see them on their own again. Joe was great, as expected, but I tuned down my sights, knowing he’d have a truncated set because of the other bands. I was bummed that he didn’t play The Extremist, Crystal Planet and only one song from Crystal Planet. Having said that, he did play a cool set that spanned most of his albums (nothing from Time Machine – I love Mighty Turtle Head). Jeff Campitelli was solid, as usual, and adds flare to Joe’s hyper-boogies. Galen Henson was brought on board for some sporatic rhythm guitar. I missed Stu Hamm, but Matt Bissonnette was quite able on bass. He brought out his trademark “chromeboy” for many of the songs. He also brought out a seven string guitar for two of his new songs and his “snakes” guitar for Friends. Spartan light setup, lame in contrast with the creative lighting he used on the Flying In A Blue Dream tour, but, once again, this was a festival-type venue. I’m glad that he’s finally starting to bring back some old favorites. It’s much less disappointing to not hear your favorite tunes if you have hope that he’ll play it next time. I really hope that he mixes it up even more next tour. For those of us whose memories aren’t what they used to be, they played:

Flying In A Blue Dream Crushing Day Devil’s Slide Cool # 9 Satch Boogie Crush Of Love - with Memories jam ending Mind Storm 7 String Midnight (excellent) Starry Night Always With Me, Always With You Raspberry Jam Delta V Mystical Potatoe Head Groove Thing Summer Song <enc> Friends

I think Joe performed from his soul and it was an enjoyable experience. The songs ring in my head today the one day after the show. I was only disappointed that some seats were empty and the people around me was not into it like me. I think if more people were into it like me Joe would have performed a second and maybe third encore. I do not blame Joe sometimes people are just in a flat mood, Joe was ripping the notes, chords, bars etc... at the above expert level as he always does.

Unfortunately the sun was in my eyes during the King X gig so I have no comment, but Dream Theater stuff leads into Joe very well it results in an over all excellent musical concert evening.