Losing My Symphony X Virginity

[fallen2289]

This is about the first time I heard Symphony X and what I thought about it at the time. I know we have had a thread like this before, but I probably didn't know about it. It was about a year and a half ago and I was walking over to my "then" girlfriend's house where I heard this sound of like a million drum pads and a radio playing. I went closer to the house where I had heard it at, and knocked on the garage door.
I had thought it was like some badass high school drummer I had never met, and could start a band with, but to my dismay it was a 35 year old guy playing his padded drums to some progressive metal music. At that time my favorite band was probably Megadeth, never heard of progressive. I talked to the guy for a minute and then he showed me a band called Symphony X, because he was gonna play drum tracks over it. It was Inferno. The first time I heard it I thought badass. After he played the whole song he told me about Symphony X and a band called Nocturnal Rites. After I visited my girlfriend I couldn't wait to get home to download Symphony X and Nocturnal Rites. Nocturnal Rites wasn't too my liking. I downloaded Inferno, Into the Dragon's Den, and the Odyssey.
It was a musical orgasm, I had never heard anything quite so good and planned so perfectly. I had always thought that there were two guitar players, but when I looked them up, I was shocked that there was only one.
I saw them at Gigantour that year, and have never looked back. I now a proud owner of every album and a few t-shirts. Thanks Symphony X.

Please repost with your own stories of how you found out about SX.

 

[DoomsdayZach]

Metal blade website, after V came out. 2001 or 2000 i believe.

 

[Tubbs]

My brother knows MJR personally (Don't believe me if you don't want to.) and he told me about Symphony X last year. That's when I decided to buy The Odyssey, and then it just went on from there. I've heard them waaaaaay before, in like 2002 or so, but I wasn't even interested in metal back then.

 

[Ayreon Guardian X]

My brother and I had just recently discovered Dream Theater, and were on Amazon.com checking out their "new" album "Six Degrees of Inner Tubulence"...at the bottom of the page was the "If you like Dream Theater, you might like..." and Symphony X was listed...we checked out a few clips, DL'ed a few songs off of KazaA or whatever P2P client we were using back then and the rest is history...I am now the proud owner of ever SymX CD they have out and a few T-shirts, and have seen them 3 times...once opening for Blind Guardian, once headlining over Devin Townsend Band and on last year's Gigantour...

 

[Horus]

At sleepaway camp in the summer of 04, I was obsessed with Megadeth and any other band with rediculous guitar playing, and a counselor told me about a band called Symphony X. I believe it was In The Dragon's Den he showed me, and I was in awe of Michael Romeo's speed.
I never actually bought a Symphony X album until January of 05. I ordered V and The Odyssey off Amazon and I was hoping to get The Odyssey first, because the review said it was alot more guitarry than the other albums, but V came first, and when I listened to it, I said to myself these exact words:

"I've finally found something in life that I can truly call beautiful. This album is the most genious thing ever to enter my life."

 

[wchuck]

amazon - samples - order :danceboy:

 

[1by4by9]

I heard the first clips of DWOT in 1999-2000 from my sister's boyfriend. Soon after that I bought almost all of their albums.

 

[AutumnGust]

Well I don't know, I just kept hearing their name mentioned at some metal message boards and then I downloaded King of Terrors of their website and I was hooked. Never had I heard such perfection before, the emotion not was I was used to. This was more mechanic sort of, because it was executed so perfectly, it was almost as if a machine had made up this music. Still it was very emotional and alive. It was just so perfectly played and executed.

 

[Logruss]

At the time I discovered them, I was into Angra - Holy Land (one of my all time favourite albums) and I just saw an ad in a magazine for SyX saying that the band had similarities with those brazilian guys.
Soon after, I just saw TDWOT in a CD store and I remembered that ad. The cover being cool, that was enough for me to buy it. What a shock !!!! Then I bought TIO, which I love very much too. Then the two first (it was some time before V was released).
I own every album now. Saw them live in a festival in Strasbourg (/w Avalon, Double Dealer, Majestic, Silent Force, Metalium).

 

[raythetse]

i think i just heard about them on some prog band forum (probably on the dreamtheater.net forum) when and downloaded to mp3s on the symphony x website, (i believe they include king of terrors, inferno, of sins and shadows, smoke and mirrors, evolution and communion) i thought it was awesome and soon afterwards i hit the music store. I was only able to find the odyssey but it was instantly my fave album... after that i bought V from another music store, and had to order the rest online.

 

[Cephalopod]

Heard them through an ex-boyfriend in 2000 or 2001. Wasn't really into them that much at first (I was stuck in a Metallica phase), but there was no denying that musicianship. Eventually I got V and started listening to it regularly, which caused me to get into other (but of course inferior) power metal as well.

 

[Anonymous]

My friend downloaded Sea of Lies on Kazaa, made me listen to it, I thought it was "not bad, but meh". Then I went to another friend's house and he had a guitar pro file of Smoke and Mirrors, I played it and saw the technicality, speed, emotion and pure awesomeness of their music so I re-listened to Sea of Lies and got my friend to burn me a CD. It had most of DWoT, a bit of Twilight and The Odyssey on it, 11 songs I think.

Now, I own all the CDs, a few shirts, MJRs pick that I caught at the Gigantour and over 40 other prog band CDs that I got into because of SX.

 

[Matt]

Took a chance on V at borders some years ago. Guess it was worth the 18.00 dollars I spent.

 

[greenaxer]

During my undergraduate years (fall of 2002) a friend of mine was working at our college computer lab, and he was all into metal and prog. A few times I came in and he had this wicked band playing on the speakers. I was amazed at how heavy, yet beautiful the arrangements of the songs were. He knew I loved Dream Theater and Rush, and he told me this band was called Symphony X. What a fitting title, I could just imagine an orchestra playing with these guys. He burned me a copy of Divine Wings, and from then on, it was pure musical love like I hadn't had in a long time.

 

[War_Blade]

i saw an MJR lesson in a magizine which i loved so i downloaded evolution and dicovered one to the greatist bands EVA!!

know i own 2 shirts and their entire discography. Can't fucking wait for paradice lost!

 

[Phanto]

I bought V because I thought it had a cool cover. Then I downloaded a few tracks from the old albums to see if the rest was as good. Then I bought the rest of em.

 

[DoomsdayZach]

paradice

Paradise. You wrote this:

 

[proulxski]

Well, you see it all started a long time ago during a Winters Dream... PFT yeah right just fucking kidding!

A rather gay friend of mine who has no sense of music has an awsome cousin who is a great drummer, and musician at that! He introduced me to Symphony X by sending me 'Awakenings' he also sent me the intro to 'Infero'... I instantly fell in love with Allen's palette of colours voice! This is where I officially began to like music, and metal! I than downloaded their music (which is bad) but now I own all their albums, including solo's and I am a proud member of their fan club! I also have a symphony x tshirt \m/

 

[Metalman7983]

My story sounds the most unique I found them by accident I was browsing through bands on powertabs.net and saw Symphony X and was like hmmm what is that so I just picked a song at random so I picked Sea of lies and it was only the guitar line and I was thinking holy shit this is awesome then I thought ohh shit I hope the singer doesn't suck ass. Then I downloaded Sea of lies, Inferno and Evolution it was about 2002 and of course I thought the singer was freakin awesome and of course Russell is we all know that.

Then I decided to burn those songs on a CD and bring with me to my college theory class where there was a bunch of metal head guys who always brought in music before class to listen to so I was like ohh I bet they haven't heard this and then we jammed Evolution full blast and hella people starting walking into class like holy shit this is freakin awesome beside me only one other dude ever heard Symphony X.

So in the end my whole theory class kind of lost their SX virginity heh.


And now I own all their albums including MJR solo record and seen them at gigantour and also got a MJR picked and met the guys afterwards and a shirt I will never wash again and is now framed on my wall!

 

[fallen2289]

My story sounds the most unique I found them by accident I was browsing through bands on powertabs.net and saw Symphony X and was like hmmm what is that...

Most unique, I believe not. The most unique story would have to be someone getting stabbed by a Symphony X knife, and in search for their attacker (who fled the scene) they discover that Symphony X is not a knife company but the greatest band ever. Powertab,lol.