On Friday the third I was pumped to be seeing my very first Dream Theater show, I could not wait to get out of school and get ready. Dream Theater consists originally of vocalist James Labrie, guitarist virtuoso, John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Kevin Moore, and drummer Mike Portnoy. Over the years the lineup has changed, the keyboard position was changed twice, Kevin Moore, Derek Sherinian, and now currently Jordan Rudess. The drummer spot was recently replaced with Mike Mangini.

The tour I saw Dream Theater on was their 25 anniversary of their album “Images and Words”, which made them popular by the song “Pull Me Under”. When I first heard the album, I was blown away, it is a perfect album, all eight songs, while very different in many ways. The boys played a first set of newer songs from 2003 through 2016, all of them were a surprise because I did not look at the setlist, a couple I knew they were going to play, but not for sure, such as “As I Am”, and “Breaking All Illusions”. After the first set, they took a 15 minute intermission and the second set started.

The theatre was dark, then an audio clip started to play with someone setting up a boombox switching through the stations, and song clips playing such as Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow”, Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”, and finally, the audio clip of a New York disk jockey talking up the song “Pull Me Under” and so the second set started. After Dream Theater played though the album, they faked the audience out pretending the show was done, but then they came back out and played the 25 minute “A Change of Seasons” suite. That was my concert experience seeing Dream Theater, would I see them again in the future? Definitely. They are a band that has fantastic musicians, lighting effects for shows, and has a near perfect discography of songs and albums.