LIVE IN TOKYO/5 YEARS IN A LIVETIME

First, they mix the concert with interviews and videos of them fooling around and promotional videos of their songs. That really distracts from the attention of the concert experience and won't allow me to enjoy it. Sure, those extra features would be great if added as bonus material. Second, they chose almost none on the songs that I really liked from the albums that had already been released up to that point.

On Live in Tokio, the only songs I like are Wait for Sleep, which is too short to rescue this video; Pull me Under, which is much more enjoyable on the original album (there are some really horrible patented LaBrie screaming added to this version); and Ytse Jam, which has some added extra-long drum solo that makes it really hard to fully enjoy it. From the videos, once again the only I really like is Pull me Under, but this is an edited version, and I really miss the deleted minutes. The rest of the songs are OK, but nothing too memorable for me, and some awful LaBrie screams keep on ruining them. Sure enough there are some interesting points on this video, mainly to see Dream Theater play, whatever songs they are playing, is very entertaining, and being such an early DT performance is also cool, specially because it includes Kevin Moore in the Line-Up.

As for 5 Years in a Livetime, it's not even one concert, but a collection of songs performed live during the years in which Derek Sherinian was part of the band. Once again, few of the songs performed here are among those I like. Mainly I like Lifting Shadows Off A Dream, which even if it isn't among my very favourite ones, it's a very enjoyanbe soft song, and it's performed quiet nicely. Also, Peruvian skies is pretty good, and it sounds kind of more energetic than the studio version... also, in this case they add some solos from Pink Floyds' Have a Cigar and Metallica's Enter Sandman, which is rather a nice surprise (though it makes me wish they had played those songs completley). On the other hand, they also play Metropolis, Learning to Live, and A Change of Seasons (the final part only) which are all songs that I really love from the band... but they are played incomplete, which makes it more frustrating than enjoyable.

They also have some covers, like Battery from Metallica (which i never really liked anyway, and even less with growiling, though the perfromance from the band did sound somewhat better than I remember from the original song), Easter from Marillion, which I didn't previously know, the Wurm part from Starship Trooper (once again, not having the complete version is rather frustrating), and a patchy Perfect strangers, which starts with a BBC recording (with Bruce Dickinson on vocals) and abruptly changes to a live performance of the group, in which the instruments are swapped, so that none is playing the instrument they really know how to play).

Strangely enough, the most pleasant surprise for me in this video were a pair of songs that were not officially released: Cover my Eyes and Just Let me Breathe. Both are very soft songs, but I really enjoyed them (and I usually don't enjoy Dream Theater's soft songs).

I would give this videos 3 stars if it were only for the concerts (even though they didn't play most of my favorite songs, none are so bad as to not making it enjoyable), however, I take one more star because of the interviews and promotional song videos mixed with the concert.

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