Official Gigantour Announcement/Discussion (updated 7/18)

[Kenneth R.]

there's no second stage at all?!?!

i'd also like to know about the security and crap.

can i bring my digital camera? my steel necklace? are they going to give me flak about these things? and when does the show start? i heard something about 5:30 but the tickets say 7.

 

[Sirro]

There is infact the Second Stage about 3am this morning i got an email from Ticketmaster saying the start time went from 7pm to 530pm so fear not folks I believe everythings fine for SymX to play =)

 

[Kenneth R.]

HURRAY. i'll just have to show up at 5:30.

the venue's site said something about "chains" not being allowed. are they gonna take away everybody's wallet-chains and necklaces? how incredibly lame if they do.

 

[TheTreesHaveEyes]

I was just at Gigantour in Portland, ME, and Symphony X was pretty great. Although, somewhere between the first minute or two of "Sea of Lies", all of the Mics just lost power. So during the technical difficulty, Rullo treated the audience with a cool drum solo, and Allen sang a little bit of what I believed to be teh title track from his solo album "Atomic Soul" a cappella. Symphony X should definitely be a main stage act.
On the main stage, Dream Theater had the best performance. All of the music sounded CD quality and they were just pretty damn good. And is it just me, or is John Petrucci looking a bit like Dave Navarro with his hair and goatee?
The crowd seemed to like Fear Factory the most. I thought they were lame, but their first song had a killer beat and "Replica" was an alright song. Some really skinny kid got his nose broken in the pit within literally 10 seconds of the first Fear Factory song, which was pretty funny.
Megadeth was decent. They used pyro during their new songs, which is good because their new stuff is pretty bad, so it was a nice distraction.

 

[mitchgo]

I was just at Gigantour in Portland, ME, and Symphony X was pretty great. Although, somewhere between the first minute or two of "Sea of Lies", all of the Mics just lost power. So during the technical difficulty, Rullo treated the audience with a cool drum solo, and Allen sang a little bit of what I believed to be teh title track from his solo album "Atomic Soul" a cappella. Symphony X should definitely be a main stage act.

I was at the show last night as well.

No one has mentioned so far that SX were allotted 40 minutes for their set, allowing them to add a song or two. So they did King of Terrors which i haven't seen on any other setlist so far. (it was great.)

but then the idiots at the state couldn't keep the board power on and Sea of Lies was cut short. So SX's big chance to do a longer set got screwed up. They did recover nicely with Sins to end the set.

They were great, but again, the idiots at the State left the house lights on for the entire set. DUH. kinda ruined the visual effect.

SX should be a mainstage act, period. It was insulting for them to share a stage with the likes of garbage like Dry Kill Logic.

MG

 

[Kenneth R.]

i agree totally. maybe they should fire their sound crew, or at least talk to them! it happened at my show too, the sound cut during sins, and the band did the same thing you described above.

jax, tell the guys that one fan at least saw the way they handled it as very professional, and graceful. they did the drum solo thing and some other stuff, and then took a triumphant bow and walked off the stage arms raised as if they knocked the house out, and by the sound of the crowd, they did. impressed me for sure.

 

[SyXified]

I was at the show in Manchester, and I'll go out on a limb here and say I really thought Symphony X was not at their best by far. Yes it sucked that the power went out and the monitors were clearly a problem because they were so lost in the intro of Inferno but that stuff can't be helped. However, Russell was dead on in parts and then off key the next minute, possibly monitor related, possibly just a bad night. MJR was really sloppy, which again could be either, but I think he just had a really off night. He kept butchering the ends of his runs, which is often nerves or just having a shitty guitar playing night - I've just never seen him miss ANYTHING before. Unfortunatly Petrucci really handed it to him in Manchester in the whole guitar competition vein, and I'm generally a much bigger fan of MJR's playing. Also I HATED his tone on the Caprision. As a whole X just was not tight and powerful in their stage presence as I have seen them.

Then again, the purpose of this tour is exposure to a new fan base and the first of hopefully future tours playing with Dream Theater, and I think they are accomplishing exactly what they set out to do. I'm sure when they come around next on the new album the show will be back up to the quality I have seen from them in the past and ideally glitch free.

 

[Rose Immortal]

I imagine they'll have more control over what goes on in the venue if they tour alone. I bet that would help with a lot of things.

 

[CHUBBYoneKaNUBBY]

I was at the Manchester show and got to see/hear SX for the first time, and they definitly made a fan out of me. I got to the show about halfwat through their set (They moved the start time of the show up a couple hours and I never found out). Even if they were having an off night, they were amazing to me, definitly put on a good show! Felt bad for them when they lost power at the end cause as soon as it happened everyone kinda just left and moved over to the first stage to wait for Fear Factory.

You're at least +1 fan after last night! :tup:

 

[AMBR]

Does anyone have any idea what time SymX will appear in Holmdel on Wednesday? I just found out one of us can't get out of work until 5:00. It would truly suck to miss the one band we really want to see.

 

[Force10]

Does anyone have any idea what time SymX will appear in Holmdel on Wednesday? I just found out one of us can't get out of work until 5:00. It would truly suck to miss the one band we really want to see.

From personal experience and reading forums, any advance listing of set times will probably turn out to be wrong. I'd suggest that you get to the show as early as you can.

 

[soundgarden]

From personal experience and reading forums, any advance listing of set times will probably turn out to be wrong. I'd suggest that you get to the show as early as you can.

Symphony X played 7pm yesterday at Jones Beach. I wonder why my ticket stated the show began at 6pm when it actually began at 4:30. I agree, get there as early as possible.

Symphony X and DT were by far the most popular. Megadeth drew the same amount of fans but you can tell the audience were more hyped for SX and DT. Symphony X deserved so much more than 30 minutes. I enjoyed SX, DT, Nevermore, and Megadeth. Fear Factory was ok. The other bands, especially Bobaflex, were horrible (IMO of course).

 

[Stardust2112]

Symphony X played 7pm yesterday at Jones Beach. I wonder why my ticket stated the show began at 6pm when it actually began at 4:30. I agree, get there as early as possible.

Actually, they went on at 6pm, which totally surprised the hell out of me. I was expecting Nevermore to go on at 6 and Symphony X to go on a little later. Boy, was I surprised!! Good set, though.

~Christina

 

[soundgarden]

Actually, they went on at 6pm, which totally surprised the hell out of me. I was expecting Nevermore to go on at 6 and Symphony X to go on a little later. Boy, was I surprised!! Good set, though.

~Christina

Mmmmm. My phone battery died. I was told by one of those staff members that they would play at 7 so I assumed it was 7pm when they started.

 

[Demonspell]

Symphony X played 7pm yesterday at Jones Beach. I wonder why my ticket stated the show began at 6pm when it actually began at 4:30. I agree, get there as early as possible.

I missed Nevermore on account of that. No huge loss, I'm sure they'll be touring on their own soon, and in places that don't have unbearable sound quality...I couldn't even recognize the first two songs Megadeth did. Symphony X kicked ass as usual...

 

[GabrielKnight]

The stage times at Jones Beach were as follows:

2ND STAGE:
4:30 – 4:50 P BOBA FLEX (20Min)
5:20 – 5:40 P DRY KILL LOGIC (20 Min)
6:10 – 6:40 P SYMPHONY X (30 Min)
7:25 – 8:10 P LIFE OF AGONY (45 Min)

MAINSTAGE:
4:50 – 5:20 P NEVERMORE (30 Min)
5:40 – 6:10 P DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN(30 Min)
6:40 – 7:25 P FEAR FACTORY (45 Min)
8:10 – 9:40 P DREAM THEATER (90 Min)
10:10 – 11:40 P MEGADETH (90 Min)

I got these from the Dream Theater forum, and it was indeed correct. SX, Nevermore, DT were awesome. Megadeth was kinda bland. The other bands... um... sucked. I took some pix, will post when I get a chance.

 

[AMBR]

Thanks tons everyone. That's a big help. Looks like we may miss Nevermore, bit of a bummer, but hopefully we'll catch the end of the set. We should definitely get there in time for SymX which is the main draw for us. I've got a media pass, so I'll be sure to post the picts. as soon as I can.

edit: Dave just snuck out of a meeting early. Looks like we're gonna catch the whole thing! Corporate world be damned! Bring on the METAL!

 

[coolsnow7]

Right, so I went to the NJ one (PNC Bank Arts Center). Right, I missed Nevermore, because I got there at 5:15, when the show was supposed to start at 5, and Nevermore was on around the same time as the Jones Beach one. Saw Dry Kill Logic... if you're into that stuff, it's very good. I enjoyed it, though I know I would hate it anywhere else. Symphony X was fucking amazing... every single person there was singing along to just about every song. They fit in King of Terrors, besides the other stuff they normally played. Next I saw Fear Factory... yeah I don't like them at all. Though they performed well I guess. Dream Theater came on around 8. They started off with a really bad song to check their levels and stuff, then played Honor Thy Father. I was ecstatic, because I had thought they weren't playing that song. The rest of their songs was stuff that was pretty intricate, and I would probably love it at home, but there the keyboard sound and the guitar sound sorta meshed into one, and wasn't even really loud enough to be heard over the bass's extremely loud sound. The real problem with that was that Myung was out of tune with the keyboard, or the vocalist, or something, because whenever a note lasted a while, you'd here harmonic dissonance. Still, they were really good with Honor Thy Father, In the Name of God, and a couple of other songs. Last, Megadeth. They started with Blackmail the Universe, very good, went on to their slow songs, then fast ones. They were excellent. And yeah, they played Holy Wars. Bitch.

 

[Heather Shockley]

I´m happy for you guys that you can see SX in the States.I´m waiting very impatiently to see them again here in Europe! This band is the most amazing in the metal scene,I´m absolutely in love with them!!

 

[Rifugium]

I saw Russell's wife.