Grammy-winning, millions-selling progressive music titans, Dream Theater, recently announced the first edition of Dreamsonic, taking place in North America throughout June and July and celebrating the summer’s ultimate progressive metal lineup. The tour kicked off on June 16th in Cedar Park, TX, and Dream Theater is joined by special guest Devin Townsend, and Animals As Leaders on what is sure to be one of the hottest tickets of the summer.
Dream Theater guitarist John Petrucci recently spoke with Billboard about the launch of Dreamsonic. Following is an excerpt from the interview.
Billboard: What does the band aim to do with Dreamsonic?
Petrucci: "What we we’re trying to do is something different from the usual sort of 'an evening with' that we do during a normal tour cycle. We wanted to put together our own package that represented a cross-section of different bands in the prog metal genre, under that umbrella, and have it be a traveling, branded tour. In this case, we call it Dreamsonic so that we could bring this back at any time, at any place in the world, and have a different collection of bands.
Since we started, the genre has grown, and prog rock and prog metal have expanded to mean all these different things. So it’s kind of interesting how many bands are out there, but they’re doing slightly different things. And this inaugural run is a prime example of that because Animals As leaders and Devin Townsend and Dream Theater are all considered prog metal bands, but we’re all doing it in a very different way. That’s what this tour is all about."
Billboard: Are you following the prototype of any particular festival?
Petrucci: "You know, I’ve been calling it a festival, but I guess when you imagine a festival, you picture a weekend and there’s many bands over the course of that weekend, and it’s just in one spot. Years ago, we did Dave Mustaine’s Gigantour... it’s in the vein of that, where there’s a bunch of bands and it’s a traveling tour, so I’m not sure what the technical word for it is when it travels like that. So I’m calling it a festival (laughs.) A traveling festival."
Read the complete interview here.
Check out fan-filmed video of Dream Theater's June 16th set below, which included Devin Townsend and Animals As Leaders joining the band for the encore, "The Spirit Carries On".
Dream Theater's setlist was as follows:
"The Alien"
"Sleeping Giant"
"Caught in a Web"
"Answering the Call"
"Solitary Shell"
"About to Crash" (Reprise)
"Losing Time / Grand Finale"
"Pull Me Under"
"The Count of Tuscany"
Encore:
"Act II: Scene Eight: The Spirit Carries On"
Remaining tour dates are as follows:
July
5 - Hamilton, ON - FirstOntario Centre
7 - Gary, IN - Hard Rock Casino
8 - Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion
9 - Newport, KY - MegaCorp Pavilion
11 - Detroit, MI - Masonic
12 - OshKosh, WI - OshKosh Arena
13 - Cedar Rapids, IA - Alliant Energy Power House
15 - Denver, CO - Mission Theater
17 - Spokane, WA - First Interstate Center
18 - Calgary, AB - Grey Eagle
19 - Edmonton, AB - Northern Alberta Jubilee
21 - Vancover, BC - Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre
22 - Redmond, WA - Marymoor Live
24 - San Jose, CA - San Jose Civic
25 - Inglewood, CA - YouTube Theater
26 - Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Financial Theater
For tickets, visit the Dreamsonic website, here.
