WHEN DREAM AND DAY REUNITE [OFFICIAL BOOTLEG]

This is the live show of Dream Theater's 2004 show of playing the entire When Dream and Day Unite album, an album I have always felt is underrated by Dream Theater fans worldwide, because of Charlie Dominici's often "out of tune" vocals or just vocals that are not James Labrie. This is of course James Labrie here on vocals, live, which is another weak spot it seems and it does show in the course of the DVD.

THE LIVE SHOW

Of course the show is When Dream and Day Unite in its entirely and also features the non-Dream Theater album song, To Live Forever, a great little ballad it is and I feel like it needs to be on an official Dream Theater album (too late for that now). Guesting is of course Charlie Dominici, the vocalist that I think sounds much better than James Labrie on vocals, for this song at least. And he is also featured on the masterful song, Metropolis Part 1, a classic in the Dream Theater arsenal of over 100 songs and a tasteful unison section that I have always loved. On here, we have Derek Sherinian cascading down on the keyboards as usual and reunited with the band just for one song that kicked him out in favor of Jordan Rudess. No eccentricities here, just plain old Sherinian action.

Anyways, the live version of When Dream and Day Unite is played pretty much without much flaws except in the vocals. The band plays flawless versions of every song and I feel like James Labrie is not the right man for the job at least for some of the songs like A Fortune In Lies and Only a Matter of Time. These songs sound like Dream Theater needed Charlie Dominici on vocals. Maybe they should have made Charlie sing on all the songs. Metropolis is overall the highlight of this When Dream and Day Unite dvd with Derek, the band and Charlie all together, culminating in a great finale.

Pretty darn good DVD 4/5, except the production isn't quite a Live at Budokan and the drums are still too damn loud.

THE BONUS FEATURES

Here we have the Commentary by Dream Theater, a video of parts of the rehearsal and an old interview. The commentary track is interesting as always and Mr. Myung doesn't really talk as usual. This is comparable to the Images and Words in Tokyo/5 Years in a Lifetime commentary with mostly everyone commentating on the release and how the show was brought out. And the rehearsal video.... Very interesting indeed, I thought it was very cool that Sherinian was part of it all..

The old commentary is where the actual gold of this part is. You get to meet the band before they were popular and celebrated.

Overall, this section is interesting, but not as well produced as Budokan, of course, pretty decent.

This release overall is not a masterpiece of Progressive music because it is an "official" bootleg, but nevertheless recommended for Fans of Prog due to its "educational" piece.

The show is as always, almost perfect, the only weak point being Labrie's performance, specially on the last songs from WDADU. He misses several notes, and maybe sometimes he actually sing the notes but it's hard to recognize them, because he is too high all the time. Still, this fact cannot prevent you to enjoy this performance, with a truly historical encore.

In addition, the extras aren't really extras, I would say they are just as essential as the main show. Really, the footage is very unusual, rare and enjoyable

An excelent buy.

Well, this is the part of their bootleg series and it is the first DVD that they released as a bootleg series. This DVD was a 15th anniversary celebration of their first studio album, "When Dream And Day Unite". It also the first time they played back all the songs from the album since 1989 and it was the first time for James LaBrie and Jordan Rudess who covered all of them. Those of you who were unsure to collect their debut album and felt dissatisfied with Charlie Dominici's voices (the vocalist at that moment), have to try this DVD because DT played better on this DVD (and also the mixing), especially James LaBrie who could sing brilliantly (I've seen many videos and I've never felt bored with their performance because however they played, I think the class is permanent so they surely always did something more than before. Trust me!!!).

So, in this album, we'll find my favorite "Ytse Jam", "Afterlife", and also "A Fortune In Lies", the only song I've ever watched live (I've also watched "Metropolis Pt. 1" but as the last part with "Pull Me Under". There's also a special guests in the encore session, Charlie Dominici (DT's vocalist in "When Dream And Day Unite" album) and Derek Sherinian (DT's keyboardist in "Falling Into Infinity", now join Planet X and make some solo albums). Don't forget to watch Derek's solo in Metropolis Pt. 1 together with Jordan's solo and John Petrucci's guitar solo. That's the highlight of this bootleg album.

Finally, although the DVD is a part of bootleg series, I still appreciate it and give it four star. Why do I still give it four star? Is my opinion objective, because I'm a die hard fan of DT? No, not at all. I think all the bands around the world including a major band such as Dream Theater can't move forward without support and trust. Even if you gave them a critic, but as I say, without support and trust, it would be useless. And those of you who always criticized DT, you even didn't deserve to claim yourself as a DT fan.

I purchased this DVD long time ago when I watched Dream Theater live in concert in Singapore, January 2006, but I did not have a chance to write a review about this. It's basically the one and only live performance of Dream Theater's debut album "When Dream and Day Unite" performed in its entirety in Los Angeles on March 6th 2004 to commemorate 15th anniversary of its release. It is also included from this historic evening is the two songs encore featuring former Dream Theater members Charlie Dominici (vocal) and Derek Sherinian (keyboards).

As Mike Portnoy opens the show with a bit of introduction about what they planned to play that night where at the same day fifteen years ago, the first album was released and it changed the rest of the band's life after that, entirely. I personally do not favor this debut album by Dream Theater for two reasons: first, the music is raw (in performance and production); second, the melody is not that catchy as other Dream Theater albums. Because this is a DVD and I like watching rock concert DVD, then it's okay for me to have this DVD to watch.

It starts in heavy and raw music with "A Fortune In Lies" which actually is not a good track to enjoy as studio track. But as this is live performance, I can see the value of enjoying this live concert. As usual, I always like the performance of John Petrucci in his guitar playing, Mike Portnoy with his jaw dropping drum works (unfortunately he has bad habits of throwing saliva while drumming - a disgusting look, really! And I cannot believe a rock star doing such this disgusting act; it's not proper.). LaBries sings wonderfully.

The track that I used to hear is Ytse Jam which basically titled as the first name of the band before it became Dream Theater. This track is excellent especially in showing the roots of Dream Theater music: a combination of heavy riffs and staccato that blends nicely in complex arrangement, plus fast tempo. That's enough to say how complex the composition is. John Myung looks really skillfull with his bass guitar and stay calm during the course of the show.

Of course the major attraction of this concert is the appearance of guest musicians who previously with Dream Theater. First is Charlie Dominici who sung in studio version of the debut album and also Derek Sherinian on keyboard. The best performance is when they all perform "Metropolis". On vocal, Charlie Dominici performs in duet with LaBrie. I'sm amazed with his vocal quality which he still can handle high register notes quite well. Derek Sherinian plays keyboard solo intertwiningly with Jordan Rudess during the extended interlude part of this song. That's what makes this DVD worthwile because there is an extension of Metropolis in this version.

Overall, this is a very good DVD and it's probably excellent addition to any prog music collection for those of you who are die hard fans of Dream Theater and progressive metal music. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Essential for fans. Great for anyone else.

I know some people feel like Dream Theater publish too much live material during this century, but this is not an official production but a bootleg. First, the quality of sound and image are very good, so you will get something worth of the price. Second, the material played is rate for them to play live, so it's a wonderful opportunity to have that legendary material finally played live, entirely and with James Labrie in the vocals. So, let's see.

You can know by now that this live performance celebrated the 15th anniversary of the original launch of When Dream & Day Unite. Now, we have Labrie singing in the place of Charlie Dominici and Jordan Rudess playing the stuff composed by Kevin Moore. I feel that the performance is great, they played good and accurate and the songs have an extra energy that the poor production of the studio album cannot show. Now, I feel that Labrie sings a lot better, have enough strength to fit in the spot and Rudess respects most of the original material. Of course, he changed some pads and keyboard sounds that could sounded dated, I think he made good calls in that, but some of his solos are just fast and no sensitive as de the original ones. I'm not complaining, is just different and you can decide if you like them or not.

The climax of the show (at least for me) is the encore where Charlie Dominici joined the band to sing two songs and then Derek Sherenian made an entrance to play Metropolis PT- 1 with Dominici and Dream Theater. More than an accurate and special ensemble or arrangement, Petrucci, Rudess and Sherinian made extended solos during the instrumental section in what seems like a war between technical players. The result is very good and worth to watch it. I know many people complain about Derek capabilities and honestly, during those solos, he sounded a lot better than Rudess. Again, is about taste, but I think any DT fan would kill to witness that presentation.

All in all, there are a couple of different arrangements of the original songs, a great work of all the players, good quality of sound and image and wonderful guest players to make a wonderful presentation. Most have for fans, great to see to any casual DT fan... 4 stars...

As far as Dream Theater DVDs go, I think this is my favourite.

The show itself is great. As a lover of Dream Theater's first album When Dream and Day Unite (i'd give it 85%), I've always wanted to see some of the lesser known tracks from this album played. With this DVD you get each of these tracks, and then some! Some of the songs have evolved, especially The Killing Hand, although in this case they retain the original intro, rather than revert to the 'Another Hand' intro that was written for the Images and Words tour. While I prefer 'Another Hand', this is still all very interesting. The video and sound quality is high and is well directed. The bonus tracks, To Live Forever and Metropolis are also fantastic. To Live Forever guests the original singer Charlie Dominici, whereas Metropolis brings back Derek Sherinian as well, turning Dream Theater into a 7-piece for the first time. Your not quite sure if Dominici still has it there in terms of vocals, but its lovely to see him perform once more.

What really sets this DVD apart though is the wealth of bonus features. Aside from the whole band commentary for the entire set (which is genuinely very interesting, although Jordan Rudess doesn't add much to this), the best feature is the 70 minute documentary about the original WDADU album. For Dream Theater fans keen to find out about their favourite songs, or how things were between the guys back then, there is no better source for information than this wonderful documentary. In the documentary there are also parts of live performances from the original 1989 tour for the album. Surely very rare footage indeed!

There are even more bonus features after this, but one little aspect I like is that the usually inaudible voices heard in the instrumental of A Fortune In Lies, is played very clearly over the menu. This is a very well made DVD that will appeal to fans of Dream Theater, and is essential for those who love that mysterious and often overlooked debut of theirs.