Dream Theater's 40th anniversary show

Let me preface this review with a bit of Dream Theater's backstory, and then I’ll talk you through the atmosphere and experience of this amazing show.

This show is Dream Theater's first performance back with their original drummer Mike Portnoy, since his departure in 2010. It must be said that there is huge respect and admiration for drummer Mike Mangini who held the position as drummer from 2010 to 2023. He gained the role after successfully auditioning with the band, alongside other amazing drummers such as Thomas Land and Marco Minneman. This whole process can be watched in a series of videos which the band made to document this process.

However, the excitement here really is all about seeing the original line-up coming back together. As thousands of Dream Theater fans arrive hours before this Sunday evening's performance and fill the venue up early, it’s clear that the original fans of the band can still come and enjoy the show with their families and children. The venue has a wonderful mature atmosphere of excited concert-goers, old friends, and all those who share the love of this wonderful band’s progressive masterpieces.

Promptly at 19:25, the lights drop for the start of the show. A huge Dream Theater banner obscures the stage, and the writing of the band’s logotype is illuminated with lasers in a really classy way. The intro to 'Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper' starts to roll, and the crowd goes wild in anticipation.

When the song starts, the banner immediately drops, revealing the original instrumental members of the band. From left to right, we see the band's bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess, drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci.

Immediately afterwards vocalist James LaBrie enters the stage and is welcomed with rapturous applause. The band perform with amazing versatility and accuracy, and they sound incredible. They continue with Act 1, Scene 2’s 'Overture 1928' and 'Strange Déjà vu' with wonderful energy, with the band giving attention to all areas of the crowd.

Vocalist James LaBrie then takes a moment to speak with the audience for the first time. He describes tonight as a “momentous occasion”, welcoming back drummer Mike Portnoy. The crowd cheers massively for him, as if welcoming a family member back home.

The band then continues to play songs such as 'The Mirror' and 'Panic Attack' with Mike’s backing vocals adding great energy to the songs. It’s so wonderful seeing this 30-year-old album being performed in such a wonderfully powerful way.

Just when it looks like they will be playing only their golden oldies, they launch into 'Barstool Warrior', this is the first time Mike Portnoy is playing songs originally written and performed by the band’s interim drummer Mike Mangini. It’s wonderful hearing Portnoys’ parts on this and it shows real musical respect between the two players.

Vocalist LaBrie delivers powerful narrative introductions to many songs, contextualising the various songs' stories and emotional influences. The band then throws it back to the song 'Hollow Years', that they have not performed together since 2010. Guitarist John Perucci delivers a wonderfully long improvised solo at the end of the song. There are so many great moments of interaction between the band members, you can really see that they are loving being back together again. Lit by a flood of torches from the crowd, LaBrie then gets wonderfully emotional delivering the song's final chorus that is followed by an amazing piano solo from Jordan Rudess.

All the crowd members were enthusiastically air-drumming, air-guitaring, singing along, or air-keyboarding. Possibly even some air-bass playing happening. The reactions from the crowd for each song are so powerful. The room is clearly full of die-hard fans which know the deep catalogue of songs.

The band then continue to play 'Constant Motion' and then launch into an astonishing intro for 'As I Am', with bassist John Myung opening the song with a bass tone so harmonically distorted that it fills the arena in a pleasant way.

After 'As I Am', the band takes a break and comes back in full force with a second set, starting with their latest song 'Night Terror'.

There are so many songs that have come back for the first time in over a decade, including fan favourites 'Stream of Consciousness' and 'Octavarium'. These songs haven’t been performed live by the band since 2004 and 2006, respectively. It’s an incredible return to form from the band’s past, seeing as these songs got many fans into the band in the first place, myself included.

It’s incredible that with such a long set, the band still exudes amazing energy and dexterity. It takes truly masterful performers to deliver a three hour performance with such great endurance and power.

Regarding the production, the sound is incredible from start to finish. The band is clear, tight, energetic, powerful and comes across in top form. Every musical solo gets fantastic focus, and everything sounds extremely clear. With such a wide gamut of tones and sounds from each member, especially Jordan's many keyboard parts, covering a full spectrum of synths, luscious soundscapes, orchestral elements and many piano parts. It really is a technical feat to make everything this clear. This truly was one of the greatest live audio experiences I’ve ever witnessed.

As for the visual side of the production, the band's staging includes a rear screen that shows various animations, which also includes a screen on the front of the drum riser, and 2 screens either side of the stage, showing the band in close detail for the benefit of those far back in the massive 20,000 capacity arena.

The rear and central screens display awesome visual backings to each song, with varieties of thematic contextualisation’s of the songs, with the Dream Theater logo flowing through many of them.

The screens either side of the stage provide a view of the band, from many angles including a drum cam. It really is astonishing. we even get a kick drum camera alongside a side-kit cam. It makes for a truly spectacular experience for all the die-hard fans in the crowd.

It must be said that celebrating 40 years together is an incredible achievement for a band and to be able to celebrate with an arena show like this is amazing. Kicking off the tour at the O2 Arena in London is a very classy way to begin their tour, which reaches Europe and America over the coming months.