DREAM THEATER Announces ‘Along For The Ride’ Tour

Progressive metallers DREAM THEATER has announced new tour dates for a North American headline trek billed as the “Along For The Ride” tour. The coast-to-coast run will pick up on March 20 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada following the band’s European tour and then continues through the end of April where it will eventually wrap up in Guadalajara, Mexico). Presale tickets will be available starting at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, December 18, with general onsale for select dates starting at 10:00 AM ET on Friday, December 20.

DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci commented: “We are all really pumped and excited to bring our new live show to North America and to take all of our amazing fans ‘Along For The Ride’!

“Returning to the ‘An Evening With’ format will enable us to deliver the best DREAM THEATER live experience yet with time for lots of music, and we can’t wait to share it with all of you.

“With this tour, our goal is for you to be able to step into the world of DREAM THEATER from the moment you enter the venue.

“We hope to create an intense and stimulating night both musically and visually and have prepared some really cool things this time around.

“Well be premiering some songs we’ve never played live before, as well as featured tracks from our latest self-titled release and plenty of classic DREAM THEATER songs for all of our long time and hardcore fans.

“We are all looking forward to a great night of music and super-psyched to kick it all off!”

“Along For The Ride” tour dates:

Mar. 20 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall
Mar. 21 – Montreal, QC – Bell Center
Mar. 25 – Boston, MA – Opera House
Mar. 27 – Upper Darby, PA – Tower Theatre
Mar. 28 – New York, NY – Hammerstein Ballroom
Apr. 01 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theater
Apr. 02 – Pittsburgh, PA – The Palace
Apr. 04 – Detroit, MI – Fillmore
Apr. 05 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theatre
Apr. 06 – Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater
Apr. 08 – Minneapolis, MN – Burnsville Performing Arts Center
Apr. 09 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
Apr. 10 – Denver, CO – Paramount
Apr. 12 – Vancouver, BC – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Apr. 15 – Salem, OR – Elsinore Theatre
Apr. 17 – San Francisco, CA – The Warfield
Apr. 18 – Riverside, CA – Fox PAC
Apr. 19 – Los Angeles, CA – The Orpheum
Apr. 23 – Mexico City, MX – Arena Ciudad De Mexico
Apr. 25 – Monterrey, MX – Arena Monterrey
Apr. 26 – Guadalajara, MX – Auditorio Telmex

DREAM THEATER‘s spirit of adventure and fearless musical virtuosity continues to reap dividends for the progressive metal titans who’ve just earned their second Grammy nomination, this time for “Best Metal Performance” for their single “The Enemy Inside” from their current self-titled album on Roadrunner Records. The band — John Petrucci (guitar), John Myung (bass), James LaBrie (vocals), Jordan Rudess (keyboards & continuum) and Mike Mangini (drums) — received its first-ever Grammy nomination in 2012 for “On The Backs Of Angels” (from their “A Dramatic Turn Of Events” album) in the “Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance” category.

DREAM THEATER’s New Album Cracks U.S. Top 10

The new, self-titled album from progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER sold around 34,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 7 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on September 24 via Roadrunner.

DREAM THEATER‘s previous CD, “A Dramatic Turn Of Events”, opened with 36,000 units to land at No. 8. The band’s 2009 effort, “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, premiered with 40,000 copies to enter the chart at No. 6. This was roughly in line with the first-week tally registered by its predecessor, “Systematic Chaos”, which shifted 36,000 copies in 2007 to debut at No. 19. 2005’s “Octavarium” premiered with 27,000 copies to land at No. 36.

Speaking to Ultimate-Guitar.com, guitarist John Petrucci stated about “Dream Theater”: “I think it’s building on [what we did on the “A Dramatic Turn of Events” album], but taking it to the next level. One of the things I really wanted to do on ‘A Dramatic Turn of Events’ was to create something that was sonically very rich and high-def and powerful and I think we accomplished that. But on this album, I wanted to take that even further…. [I wanted to] get more cinematic with it and more earthy and aggressive and bigger. I wanted a bigger, more forward in-your-face kind of sound. I think that kind of dictated the sounds we went for while we were writing and recording and then ultimately how it was mixed. So yeah, it was kind of building on that, but taking it to the next level. You always need to progress and to try and do something different and kind of have a little bit different take on it and a different perspective. But hopefully make it better as you go.”

The nine-track disc was recorded at Cove City Studio in Glen Cove, Long Island, with Petrucci producing and Richard Chycki engineering and mixing. It’s the band’s second album with drummer Mike Mangini, and the first one on which he was a part of the writing process from Day One.

In January, Petrucci said of Mangini‘s work: “When people hear the drumming on this album, they’re gonna be pretty freaked out. On the last album, he did a great job, but he wasn’t there for the writing process and he was interpreting drum parts that I had programmed. Even though he used his creativity, of course, to change them up and do his thing, I feel like now he’s just Mike Mangini unleashed. It’s all him. It’s all his creativity, all his decisions and ideas and man, the guy’s an animal.”

“Dream Theater” track listing:

01. False Awakening Suite
I. Sleep Paralysis
II. Night Terrors
III. Lucid Dream
02. The Enemy Inside
03. The Looking Glass
04. Enigma Machine
05. The Bigger Picture
06. Behind The Veil
07. Surrender To Reason
08. Along For The Ride
09. Illumination Theory
I. Paradoxe de la Lumière Noire
II. Live, Die, Kill
III. The Embracing Circle
IV. The Pursuit of Truth
V. Surrender, Trust & Passion

“Dream Theater” was made available in a wide range of distinctive versions, including standard and special edition CDs, 180-gram double LP, and a limited-edition boxed set.

The video for the song “The Enemy Inside” was directed by Bill Fishman (RAMONES, STEVE RAY VAUGHAN). The strictly conceptual clip deals with the torment of a soldier who’s struggling with reintegrating into his life back home due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Regarding the song’s lyrics, Petrucci told Billboard.com: “At the time that we were in the studio working on the [new DREAM THEATER] album and I was writing lyrics, the Boston Marathon bombings happened. There was a lot of discussion of terrorism and PTSD as if affects people who witness traumatic events like terrorism, so it was just very on my mind. It linked very well with the mood of the song, and as we started to get into it, I watched some documentaries and things like that. I was like, ‘This is really something that needs to be written about.'”

DREAM THEATER: New Song ‘The Enemy Inside’ To Premiere On Monday

Progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER will release their new, self-titled album — the band’s 12th studio release overall, and fourth withRoadrunner Records — on September 24.

A track from the CD, “The Enemy Inside”, will premiere on Monday, August 5 at USAToday.com.

Says guitarist John Petrucci about “Dream Theater”: “I see every new album as an opportunity to start over. To either build or improve upon a direction that has been evolving over time or to completely break new ground.

“This is the first self-titled album of our career and there is nothing I can think of that makes a statement of musical and creative identity stronger than that. We’ve fully explored all of the elements that make us unique, from the epic and intense to the atmospheric and cinematic.

“We’re incredibly excited about ‘Dream Theater’ and can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”

The nine-track disc was recorded at Cove City Studio in Glen Cove, Long Island, with Petrucci producing and Richard Chycki engineering and mixing. It’s the band’s second album with drummer Mike Mangini, and the first one on which he was a part of the writing process from Day One.

In January, Petrucci said of Mangini‘s work: “When people hear the drumming on this album, they’re gonna be pretty freaked out. On the last album, he did a great job, but he wasn’t there for the writing process and he was interpreting drum parts that I had programmed. Even though he used his creativity, of course, to change them up and do his thing, I feel like now he’s just Mike Mangini unleashed. It’s all him. It’s all his creativity, all his decisions and ideas and man, the guy’s an animal.”

“Dream Theater” track listing:

01. False Awakening Suite
I. Sleep Paralysis
II. Night Terrors
III. Lucid Dream
02. The Enemy Inside
03. The Looking Glass
04. Enigma Machine
05. The Bigger Picture
06. Behind The Veil
07. Surrender To Reason
08. Along For The Ride
09. Illumination Theory
I. Paradoxe de la Lumière Noire
II. Live, Die, Kill
III. The Embracing Circle
IV. The Pursuit of Truth
V. Surrender, Trust & Passion

“Dream Theater” will be available in a wide range of distinctive versions, including standard and special edition CDs, 180-gram double LP, and a limited-edition boxed set. Pre-orders are scheduled to launch in July at theRoadrunner Records webstore.

DREAM THEATER will be on tour in Europe in January and February 2014, and in North America in March 2014.

“Live At Luna Park”, DREAM THEATER‘s live concert, which was previously scheduled for release in May via Eagle Rock Entertainment, will now drop in North America on November 5 as a Blu-ray, 2DVD, 2DVD + 3CD, Blu-ray + 3CD, deluxe edition with 40-page book, Blu-ray + 2DVD + 3CD, and digital video via iTunes.

“Live At Luna Park” was filmed over two nights in South America — home to one of DREAM THEATER‘s most ardent fanbases. The DVD was filmed August 19 and August 20, 2012 at Estadio Luna Park in Buenos Aires, Argentina after a 15-month world tour, hitting 35 countries.