Information
Jun. 20th, 2000 - Cambridge, MA (The Middle East)
WOO HOO!
I just got back from a kick-ass Transatlantic set at The Middle East here in Boston!
The band was much more together than at NEARfest. Everyone seemed more relaxed and played better, especially Roine, who seems like he's coming into his own in the band and played some great solos tonight! (He even smiled and goofed around a bit with the other guys.) There were far, far fewer sour notes and no major timing snafus (that I noticed). I suspect it'll only get better as the tour progresses.
There were still some sound problems though. The mix was real bad at the very beginning again, and also a few other times during the set. [[BTW, does anyone know who's doing sound on this tour? I can't figure out who the heck he's listening to, but it's clearly not Transatlantic!!! :| He must be listening to his discman or something behind the board there! I'm not talking about minor mix problems here either -- I'm talking about: "Hey, is someone actually playing keyboards on that stage? I can't hear any -- AT ALL!" Or: "Hey, is there a whole band up there, or just a guitar?" Alright, so I'm exaggerating a little.But it *was* bad!]] The good news though, on both nights, is that the mix did eventually get cleaned up; but it took way too long IMO.
The other sound problem tonight was the mains on the left side were coming on and off for probably a good 20 minutes or so at the start. It was pretty disconcerting to have half the sound drop away suddenly -- you could actually feel the pressure in the room shifting when the sound stopped.
Neal had an easier night than at NEARfest, but still had some problems. He was singing great tonight with a lot of feeling and energy and his playing was probably a bit more "on". His headset mike was fine tonight. However, he had one minor little problem.... his keyboard stand collapsed and the board crashed to the floor right in the middle of My New World!!!! :) It was actually pretty funny. There was a loud crash and then Roine stopped singing and asked if Neal was alright (he was, of course, and even his keyboard turned out to be unharmed). They had to stop the song while Neal's keyboard was put back up. While we waited for that, the rest of the band jumped into a spontaneous jam that was really rocking with Roine wailing away! Once Neal's keys were back together, the jam ended and Mike Portnoy said "Okay, where the hell were we??!" and Roine started them back into it by singing the "Now she's a loner, now she's a stoner..." part. Poor Neal.. at least he was having a good time. :)
The crowd was perhaps 200 and was very enthusiastic. Seemed to be mostly Dream Theater and Marillion fans (no surprise, I suppose).
The set was the same except they swapped the covers and the medley -- the medley was the encore tonight. They also left off the last cover tune, which was only a short bit anyway (I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen the show yet -- the rest of you should know which I mean
Written by Ray Lambert
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