Dream Theater - Live at Budokan

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Product Description ------------------- Film of Dream Theater performing live at Budokan, Japan on 26 April 2004. Tracks include 'As I Am', 'Endless Sacrifice' and 'New Millennium'. A 25-minute documentary, 'Riding the Train of Thought', is also included. .com ---- A treasure-trove for Dream Theater fans, Live at Budokan presents an entire three-hour performance at Tokyo's famed Budokan arena on April 26, 2004, along with a bonus disc rich in supplementary material. Disc 1 finds the metallic progressive-rock quintet at its awe-inspiring best, plowing through its catalog of dramatic epics and jack-hammer instrumentals, including five of the seven songs from 2003's Train of Thought ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000CDLA7/${0} ). Disc 2 features an extended drum solo from percussionist extraordinaire Mike Portnoy; gear tours from guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess (fascinating for lay people and downright revelatory for musicians); and a half-hour documentary on DT's 2004 stint in Japan punctuated by tantalizing snippets of band rehearsals. The shooting and editing for the concert are a music lover's dream, with lengthy s that linger on the performances of individual band members. Disc 2 takes this even further with a multi-angle sequence of the 12-minute "Instrumedley." Production values are extremely high: it's a widescreen presentation on high-def video and nicely mixed for multichannel Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (with a thinner, collapsed version of the same for Dolby 2.0). It must be noted, however, that the center, subwoofer, and surround channels get jumbled right at 1:35:30 on disc 1. The front left/right channels remain in place, but the signals for the other four speakers play non-musical chairs. People listening in 2.0 will experience a brief dropout at that point. --Michael Mikesell