DREAM THEATER SCORE CELEBRATES 20 YEARS

Dream Theater have long carried the torch for technically challenging progressive music clothed in the metal genre, and they celebrated their 20 year anniversary in grand fashion.

Dream Theater has released Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour Live With The Octa-varium Orchestra, and two versions are available — the two disc DVD and the three disc CD set. Drummer Mike Portnoy talked about the challenge of working with an orchestra.

“Well the whole show itself was a challenge because it was incorporating a 30 piece orchestra, which something that we’ve never done before. So that in itself was a big challenge. The staging of it, obviously the arrangements of the music and the rehearsal with the orchestra, so just incorporating them into our music was something completely new. But also anytime your filming a DVD there’s a lot of pre-production that’s involved, and that was something that I had to really be involved, and that was something that I had to really look at and and spend time on — making sure that everything was set for this big event at Radio City, the big finale of our tour.”

Portnoy also called it the defining moment in the band’s career.

“It sounds like a cliche really to answer this, but I think that the Radio City show that’s documented on the Score DVD really is one of the pinacles or highlights of our career. It sounds like a stock answer, but it’s the honest to god truth. I think it really kind of summed up the first twenty years of our career. It encapsuled so many different elements that are a part of a Dream Theater show. Our performance, the audience, fans from all over the world being there, the orchestra, Radio City, our hometown. The set list went chronologically through our whole career, covering songs from every album and era. So really that was one of those nights where really the stars were alligned and everything was in its right place.”

Score featured a 30 piece orchestra led by Conductor and arranger Jamishied Sharifi. Dream Theater is currently holed up in a studio in New York City working on their next studio effort.