A Night To Remember... Forever

Yesterday was horrible

No!!! I don't mean Progressive Nation 2009 night. I am talking about the heavy rain and traffic jam on the highway while driving south west to Rotterdam. I know it was also the time when people driving back to their homes after eight hours (or more) working day.

But it never stopped raining, never, till today early in the morning!

Anyhow, Arrived in Ahoy much later than expected - there are a lot of people who also got stuck in the traffic because I saw a lot were just parking their cars, or walking under the pouring rain, or standing in long queues waiting to get their tickets investigated and bodies searched for any sharp objects.


For that reason I missed the first band, Unexpect. I also didn't see Bigelf from the beginning of their fantastic performance.

I really wished that Bigelf would play longer, because surely they blew me away with only the last couple of songs they played - one of them is the excellent "Money, it's Pure Evil". Their playing and overall performance was so powerful, musically tight, and full of melodic epics. This is how I can describe Bigelf - Not to forget Damon Fox's voice and keyboard/organ playing; this was the first time I see a combination of Led Zeppelin's Plant and Deep Purple's Jon Lord depicted in one person performing on stage. His voice is even better than studio recordings.

Then came Opeth, quietly walking into stage and picking up their instruments under the cheer applause of the public.

There was a big blast of laughter when one fan shouted "Norway". The band lead singer and guitartist, Mikael Åkerfeldt looked calm and straight to the direction where he heard that rant, with pure tone in his voice, he said "We are from Sweden..." he paused, kept looking in the same direction and said "... and... our name is Opeth". Big applause followed that rocked the hall.

Opeth does need introduction, I call their music deviant progressive metal, with mid-tempo as the main on almost all songs.

I was surprised they didn't play acoustic-guitar songs as I hear on their album. Things to note about Opeth (apart from their musical perfection), are the singer's powerful ability to change from the warm tone in his voice to the growling that would tear every thing up, and the very long and repetitive composition on every song.

Between each song Akerfeldt was deliberately used to be giving false meanings to the next song they were going to play, with sarcastic remarks every now and then.

By the way, I didn't get was the last song: it was to me like the band was playing that song thinking that it would last longer, or they just decided to ended the way it ended. I don't know, but something was not quiet right at the end.

This did not ruin the joy of watching them live for the first time.

For almost half an hour, busy stage crew was preparing everything for the headliners, Dream Theater. A huge gray curtain kept blocking the most psychedelic stage I have ever seen - simple but glamor until the first song already began.

I was hoping they would play at least one song from their newest (and best to date) Black Clouds & Silver Linings, and was expecting them to play "A Rite of Passage".

I was wrong!

Dream Theater performance started with thunder, sound of thunder and playing like thunder. They started the show with the first and one of my most favorite songs from that album: A night to Remember.

They proved me wrong many times, in fact, because Dream Theater played not only one song from this superb album, they played "A Rite of Passage", "Wither", and ended their stunning performance with the epic ""The Count of Tuscany".

I am sure if they had more time to play, they would not mind to play the remaining two songs from that fantastic album.

Dream Theater played songs from their old catalog too, and joked with the public on numerous times - loved the moment when drummer Mike Portnoy stick his nose or take one drumstick into his nose while playing his drums aggressively and with speed of light. This was hilarious, it made me wonder how perfect such a drummer like that can do complex compositions on his instrument while keep the good spirit and control on everything around him.

One of the things I noticed is how guitarist John Pertucci's gain of weight, contradicts to the big loss of weight of drummer Portnoy.

Oh, and James LaBrie was amazing too... I heard him life a lot of times, but this time I was stunned to see and hear him singing life. I don't need to mention the rest of the band because they don't require some compliments: Does the rattling bass playing of John Myung or the Keyboard/synth's playing by the wizard Jordan Rudess needs introduction?

I am sure that there are a lot to tell, and there are a lot of people who can write reviews better than I do (especially when writing so quickly like I am doing now) in describing the Dutch leg of progressive nation tour 2009, for those four bands there is one definite fact: It was a night to remember

Below are videos from last night

Dream Theater - "A Night To Remember"



Opeth - Windowpaint


Dream Theater - Count of Tuscany