Dream Theater

What started the whole dream theater experience for you?

For me it was Pull Me Under back in 1992....your ups.

Same for me...saw the PMU video on MTV back in late '92. Then started hearing the song on the radio. Bought the disc in Spring of '93 after also hearing TTT on radio.

I became a huge fan once I saw the Live in Tokyo video in '94. I remember being captivated by that show. Then came Awake in late '94 and I lost my mind over that album. That is when I truly became a DT fanatic.

One listen to Glass Prison was all it took. Worse than crack!

'94 for me. My best friend was a fan, and played Images and Words for me, and I was compleltey blown away! I play guitar, so for me, it was the music. I had never, ever, heard music like that before in my life. And that was it, hooked! Great topic!

I had read magazines and saw articles about the band, and even remember when Images and Words had ads in mags like "Metal Hammer," but I ignored them, choosing to listen to other bands instead. Then I met this guy by the name of Shaun Quirk, and he was this 18 year old drum prodigy. He prided himself on being able to play substantial pieces of music by Rush and Dream Theater. Well, one day he invited me over to his house telling me, "Dude, I just bought the new Dream Theater album called Awake. You should come over and check it out." Well, I did, and I was hooked. That album defined everything perfect I had been seeking out in a band. I was becoming disenfranchised with "cookie cutter" music, bands all sounding the same or using the same four chords over and over. Well, here I am listening to the opening drum line of "6:00 a.m" and my mouth is hanging open, but by mid-album I had decided I needed everything I could get my hands on. To this day, I am always awaiting the next album, ready to devour every note, every word and emotion. I can't think of any other band that has ever caught my attention on such a large scale, but maybe that's because there is no other that compares in my mind.......

Around late 2004, my friend showed me a video of Mike Portnoy at Modern Drummer Festival 2003, it was that snippet of him playing the ending of Instrumedley with DT (Hell's Kitchen) and I was absolutely amazed, but it didn't really spark any long term interest. Then a few weeks later, the same friend sent me the LTE track "Acid Rain", and quite immediately, my world changed, I had no idea people could play their instruments like that, until that point all I listened to was radio rock, that piece was the single biggest catalyst for me into the world of DT and metal in general. So afterwards I went out and bought both LTE albums, listened to and digested every track until I knew them back to front, and quickly LTE became my favorite band, and John Petrucci has inspired me to view guitar playing beyond just power chords. Around mid 2005, I started getting into other metal bands (Metallica, In Flames). At this point, I found out that LTE was just a side project and the main band is actually DT, but I also heard that the vocalist can be an acquired taste.

2005 also happened to be a very difficult year for me, I was going through many changes in my life, many shit things happening and things just weren't going right. In September 2005, I went to my local record store to browse around, and it just so happens that Octavarium was just released and on the demo shelf, so I decided to demo it to see if I could get into it, I wasn't hooked upon my first listen but I thought I liked it enough to get into it, so I bought the thing and it grew on me, and during this difficult time, this album spoke out to me and the rest is history.

I was screwing around on youtube and saw the video in the studio the dark eternal night then constant motion then I'm hunting down there cd's all of them

I had known about them for a while. But it wasn't until someone recommended me the John Petrucci Rock Discipline video. Loved it and began to explore DT. Started with Falling To Infinity. But it wasn't until after I watched the Live At Budokan DVD where I freaked out. From the first three songs, I knew I was going to love them until the end of time. I have seen them twice so far. But I hear so many new things in the music and that never bores me. Right now, A Dramatic Turn Of Events is in my top ten favorite CDs of all time.

Following the release of TOT, I overhead a guy listening for the first time to Stream of Consciousness, and I was extremely impressed with the technicality of it, I had at that point never heard musicianship of that caliber. From there I wrote the band name down on my hand and looked it up when I got home, not knowing where to start I downloaded the first song that came up, which was Take Away My Pain. And for a while I refused to believe it was the same band, but after confirming, it was clear to me that Dream Theater was not a fluke, and I was instantly hooked. I, like many of you bought every album of theirs within the next month. Since then I've been the biggest DT fan that I know.

One day, my brother heard of LTE from a friend of his in high school. Songs were shared among them, resulting in my brother showing me Acid Rain and Paradigm Shift. I tell you, there just may never be any other experience in the future that could match up to this one. I kept it my little secret and only told a couple of my good friends, and they were instantly blown away and hooked on it as well. I didn't want the general public to know about it; I preferred my favourite bands to be known to only myself. After that, my brother showed me Dream Theater... presenting to me The Glass Prison in all its glory. I was excited to discover both the bands and began to research their discographies, proud to have been able to keep going for a while when searching for DT material. I had finally found my #1 favourite band, 7 years ago.

Heard the song Pull Me Under on a Boating Video in 1998 (Scream and Fly Forum). Googled the chorus and WOW I was hooked from then on. Went on a spending spree and purchased all of their CDs ect to catch up, havent looked back. Only regret,,not hearing them earlier.

So many friends of mine are fans now as well.