Indeed...the show was simply beyond words, and SOOOO worth the trip from Seattle.
I wish I could say that the people on this forum are the nicest people on the planet, but I think that award has to the band...I was simply blown away by their desire to communicate with the fans, and how genuinely nice they all were. If I was part of one of the world's best bands and still have such a limited audience, I suspect I'd be pretty friggin' hostile.
It's really a shame we couldn't magically have 1/1000th of the world's population just listen to 20 minutes of that concert, but then I suppose it'd be a whole hell of a lot harder for me get such great seats at future concerts, so I suppose this is a nice arrangement for a selfish bastard like myself.
Bill - Stop making all those double hand racing sessions look so easy, man! You're embarassing every keyboard player that was there! And love the nose work.
Sean - I swear, everytime I ever saw you drum you were smiling like a kid in a candy store...a very big candy store. I'm thinking during some of the more advanced playing, you're going to show a look of pure determinism, but nope...still smiling!
Ed - I was simply in awe seeing how you came out with your drum beats...I've always loved them on the records, but seeing your work on Progtology about gave me a heart attack...which I suppose would be good for the poor people behind me jumping up and down to see anything above my 6'5" stature.
Doug - Holy Hell, man...the playing was just awesome, but your poor guitar! You ripped that thing to shreds! No wonder the guitar was trying to get unleashed from you...if you were ripping away at me like that, I'd be trying to get away too!
Ted - You have a real gift, both with your titanium vocal cords, and your guitar playing...but...uh....please, no Metallica cover from you, okay.
Seriously...it really shows how much of yourself you pour into each note, and it's really nice to see singers who understand that it's not about singing notes, but really communicating.
I had just seen Dream Theater on the 2nd, and while their songwriting has not as good as it could be (imo), they've always been about live performances with me...there's simply no such thing as a "bad" show, or even a "good" show with them...they're never worse than "great". I've been a huge fan of you guys as long as I've known you, so I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I've never seen you live before, and I was a little worried that seeing Dream Theater right before would spoil me for you guys.
You guys blew them out of the water. Seriously...you just seem to have a much better appreciation for what music is all about than those guys, and that isn't because I'm not a fan of Dream Theater...I have been and always will be, but you guys are just in a whole other class.
Okay, enough babbling...but quickly, thanks so much for the last two days, Enchant, and thanks to all the other forumers for being such great people! Hope to see everyone again real soon!
