Over the course of its three decades performing, progressive metal outfit Dream Theater has periodically created concept albums. Their 1999 LP, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, was the band’s first concept album and marked the debut of Jordan Rudess as the group’s keyboardist.

In 2002, the Boston-based band released Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, another conceptual work. And 2016’s sprawling The Astonishing featured an ambitious story line running more than two hours.

But Dream Theater has long made a point of keeping fans on their toes; the group never does the same thing twice in a row. Their catalog features eight live albums, not counting the seven “official bootleg” live sets issued as part of the group’s Live Series. And scattered among the conceptual albums and live releases are a number of straight-ahead collections of songs—studio albums that focus on spectacular instrumental interplay and thoughtful lyrics, but no running theme. The band’s 2005 album Octavarium and a self-titled release from 2013 are the most notable of these.

Rudess explains that while The Astonishing was the product of the group wanting to “break out of what people usually expect and try something creative that we really were drawn to,” the band’s latest full-length, Distance Over Time, takes a different approach.

“This time we wanted to return to the roots,” Rudess says, “back to the core of what the sound is and what it’s always been. Dream Theater is a group that incorporates a lot of styles, but there is a core element of prog metal. We just wanted to get back to that.”

It would seem that this was exactly what the fans wanted. Distance Over Time performed well on the American charts and fared even better in Europe, topping out in Germany and Switzerland and landing in the top 10 in 16 other countries.

Rudess credits the band’s commercial success and critical plaudits to three major factors. One is that unlike most other bands in the progressive metal category, Dream Theater have actually scored a hit single. “Pull Me Under” was an MTV hit in 1992. “That lit a fire in every corner of the globe” for the band, he says.

Rudess acknowledges that such a fire usually burns out quickly for bands. “But through a whole lot of hard work, going to all those markets where there was a little spark of interest, playing well and putting on a good show … that kept it really alive,” he says. “And so we began to develop an audience in different parts of the world.”

Yet a hit single and touring can only achieve so much for a band. Rudess says that there’s one more ingredient that accounts for the group’s enduring appeal. “Dream Theater plays a lot of complicated music,” he admits. “But we try to make our music come from the heart. You realize when you play all over the world that what audiences respond to—what they really feel—is emotional.”

That emotional content—paired with dazzling instrumental pyrotechnics from Rudess, guitarist John Petrucci and the rhythm section of drummer Mike Mangini and John Myung on bass—is what connects the band and its audience, Rudess says.

“There are plenty of times when the playing gets fairly technical,” he says, “but there are other times when there are just these big chords. You can see the people: They’re vibing, and some of them might even have tears running down their face.” He says it’s in those moments when he is reminded of what is truly important to people.

“As incredible as a lot of the young musicians are—I follow a lot of them and I’m very impressed with what’s going on, especially with the prog metal scene—maybe they haven’t totally realized that the heart is the part that really goes out wide,” Rudess says. “That’s what captures a big audience and keeps them.”
Dream Theater
Oct 30, 8pm, $75+
San Jose Civic

For more than three decades now, Dream Theater has been exploring and charting new territory in the realms of progressive rock and metal, continually redefining both themselves and the musical genres they have long championed.

With the release of their latest record, The Astonishing, earlier this year, the band has further cemented their reputation for breaking new ground and pushing the boundaries of rock, incorporating a vast array of elements into the 34-track concept album.

According to a press release for the album, The Astonishing “paints a tale of a retro-futurist post-apocalyptic dystopia, ruled by medieval style feudalism. It’s a place aching for a Chosen One to rise above the noise and defeat an empire defined by the endless drone of noise machines and the illusion of safety in bland musical conformity.”

Sound familiar?

The group will be performing The Astonishing, live and in its entirety, when they play at the City National Civic on Nov. 20. The show—by all accounts a massive undertaking—will incorporate an immersive visual show to complement the music and narrative arc of the album, which is set in a post-apocalyptic world.

The brainchild of founding member and guitarist John Petrucci, the themes underpinning Dream Theater’s 13th studio effort did not come in an instant of inspired reverie. In fact, Petrucci had been working on The Astonishing for a couple of years before he brought it to his band.

“When he came to us at the end of the last world tour with the story, I read it and was immediately inspired and felt a rush of musical ideas to contribute,” says Jordan Rudess, DT’s keyboardist since 1999. “It was the most intense writing project that we’ve done together yet. At times it was almost more like writing music for a film score or a musical—supporting the story and developing themes for the different characters, there’s a lot of recurring motifs.”

Once the writing process was complete, the band enlisted the skills of David Campbell, an arranger, composer and conductor, who has worked with the likes of Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, Adele, Beck and many more.

“David did a beautiful job of taking what John and I put together in the studio and bringing it to a real orchestra and real choir and getting these great soloists to come in and add a magic touch to it,” Rudess says. “It was a lot of work on every level, it was the biggest Dream Theater project I’ve ever been involved in, and it continues on the road.”

In bringing the album to the stage, Dream Theater wanted to make it a larger-than-life experience for fans—hiring a specialized production company to add visual components to the mix. As Rudess explains, the type of venues that were booked for this tour were also chosen specifically for their acoustic properties and intimate settings.

“We wanted people to be seated,” Rudess explains. “There’s a lot to watch on the screen, so we thought this would be the best way to enjoy this record, which is more dynamic. It has more soft points on it than most Dream Theater albums—but that’s not to say it isn’t heavy as well.”

The veteran musician promises that the concert experience, which will be performed in two acts, is one that fans new and old will come away from thoroughly satisfied. “It’s an emotional, dynamic musical ride.”

The Astonishing follows Dream Theater’s 2013 self-titled LP, which garnered them a second Grammy nomination and landed at the top of Billboard’s “Hard Rock Albums” chart, and even peaked at No. 7 on the “Billboard 200” rankings.

Dream Theater
Nov 20, 8pm, $50-$70
City National Civic, San Jose