Video: DREAM THEATER Kicks Off 'The Astonishing' World Tour In London

Progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER kicked off their "The Astonishing" world tour this past Thursday, February 18 at The Palladium in London, England.

The band's setlist was as follows:

Act 1

01. Dystopian Overture
02. The Gift Of Music
03. The Answer
04. A Better Life
05. Lord Nafaryus
06. A Savior In The Square
07. When Your Time Has Come
08. Act Of Faythe
09. Three Days
10. Brother, Can You Hear Me?
11. A Life Left Behind
12. Ravenskill
13. Chosen
14. A Tempting Offer
15. The X Aspect
16. A New Beginning
17. The Road To Revolution

Act 2

01. 2285 Entr'acte
02. Moment Of Betrayal
03. Heaven's Cove
04. Begin Again
05. The Path That Divides
06. The Walking Shadow
07. My Last Farewell
08. Losing Faythe
09. Whispers On The Wind
10. Hymn Of A Thousand Voices
11. Our New World
12. Astonishing

Fan-filmed video footage of the concert can be seen below.

A detailed review of the show is available on the Australian Musician Network web site.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, DREAM THEATER guitarist and main songwriter John Petrucci was asked if the band was concerned about the reception to its current live show, which features them performing their new concept album, "The Astonishing", in its entirety. He said: "I'm not concerned about it, because we're being very transparent about what we're doing. By very clearly billing this as 'The Astonishing' live, and letting people know that we're playing in very special seated theaters and symphony concert halls, and we're presenting this show as a stand-alone show — that's how we wrote it, that's how we intended it — it's its own special event.

"DREAM THEATER has been touring forever; we've played the different stadiums and arenas, ice halls, gymnasiums and whatever. We wanted to make this different — we wanted to make this special. And so as long as people know that going into it, I don't think anybody is going to show up in a DREAM THEATER shirt, saying, 'Why didn't they play 'Pull Me Under'?' They're going to totally understand what we're doing."

Regarding whether DREAM THEATER will be augmenting the band at all when they play "The Astonishing" live, Petrucci said: "We're not going to be augmenting the band as far as other performers — if we were to film this for a DVD or do a really special location, that would be the instance where we'd have a live orchestra and choir. But we decided to take a lot of time and a lot of care to enlist a company that could create the visuals, so that this is as much of a visual show as it is an aural experience. Because this is character-driven and there are locations, we're going to try to make the stage almost like a transformative stage, an immersive stage, where the settings come to life, and a lot of the artwork is going to be animated. We wanted it to be the closest thing to watching a movie while the band is playing a live score, basically."

"The Astonishing" was released on January 29 via Roadrunner. The CD was made available in a wide range of distinctive versions, including standard 2-CD set, 4-LP vinyl box set and a limited-edition deluxe box set.

Recorded at Cove City Sound Studios in Glen Cove, New York, with John Petrucci producing, studio luminary Richard Chycki (AEROSMITH, RUSH) engineering/mixing and legendary arranger, composer and conductor David Campbell orchestrating, "The Astonishing" paints a tale of a retro-futurist post-apocalyptic dystopia ruled by medieval style feudalism. It's a place aching for a Chosen One to rise above the noise and defeat an Empire defined by the endless drone of noise machines and the illusion of safety in bland conformity.