The Boy is Made of Songs…

Image description: the stage at Radio City Music Hall flanked by two LED screens, all with Dream Theater’s “40th Anniversary Tour 2024-2025” artwork. March 22nd, 2025.

Nostalgia is poisonous, it inhibits people from living in the here and now.

I try not to live in the past for the above reason – I want to experience the present to the fullest extent, and I feel that pining for days long past impedes people from doing that. So, how do I balance that with seeing a band that I loved since the early ’90s?

A short recap: I first discovered Dream Theater in August of 1992, even before Pull Me Under saw MTV success that fall, which was a benefit of growing up where the band was from, getting an almost 10 minute song airplay on local metal radio. The first of my long concert history started in October of 1994 at the Manhattan Center. I’ve met them a bunch of time. The band has been foundational to my development as a musician, and John Myung specifically as a bassist. Hell, I have a tattoo of the Majesty symbol on my right bicep.

That being said, I’m not uncritical about the band. I think they missed an opportunity to incorporate Derek Sherinian’s jazz-fusion influence when he was a member of the band from 1994-1998. There have been periods where I feel the band was pandering to modern metal of the time, following when they should have been leading as the statesmen that they are. I wish Mike Portnoy’s development as a drummer hadn’t stagnated in the early 2000s (he himself has stated that he stopped practicing once he married and had kids).

And so with those factors balanced, how was the North American finale at Radio City Music Hall on March 22nd, 2025? Very good. The production value was the highest the band has ever had, with large LED screen as a backdrop, high-end lighting, and lasers (I remember when the production value consisted of large lava lamps onstage). Technically the band was precise as always, as Dream Theater has built a career of being – one does not become the standard bearers of Progressive Metal by being sloppy. After a bit of a rough opening, James LaBrie settled into a good place vocally – it’s not easy to sing operatic vocals after one has ruptured their vocal cords, as well as being 61 years old.

Mainly, there was a feeling of comfort around old favorites. I’ve come to terms with the fact that nothing in my life with hit me like Dream Theater in the mid-’90s, mainly because I’m not in my late teens and early twenties anymore. I’m a middle-aged man, and Dream Theater has existed in my life for 33 years. I accept them for who they are now, and not what they once were, just as I accept myself for the same reasons.

Living in the here and now is the best of times.