2003-2005 Uncovered liner notes

After having so much fun covering a few classic albums in their entirety on the 2002 tour (Metallica’s Master Of Puppets and Iron Maiden’s The Number Of The Beast), I was looking forward to a few more “2-night stands” on the 2003/2004 Train Of Thought tour to pick a few more classic albums to cover. But when the tour dates came in, I was disappointed to see no “2-nighters” on the itinerary...

So I decided to still keep having fun with the covers and pick a bunch of “one-offs” that I’d pop into various setlists throughout the tour... only to be played that once and then never again (with the exception here of “Machine Messiah” which we played every night while on tour opening for Yes in summer 2004). Usually I’d strategically place the covers according to the original band’s history or home turf (Queen in London, Kansas in Kansas City, Journey in San Francisco, etc.).

We would learn the songs and rehearse them at soundchecks on the days leading up to each show (bless my bandmates for putting up with me!)... and luckily, I always kept DAT rolling as many of the versions ending up included here actually came from those soundcheck rehearsals...

1. Death On Two Legs

Originally Recorded by Queen

Recorded at Soundcheck in Copenhagen, Denmark – 1/20/04

This is one of Queen’s finest and most sinister moments... which opens their masterpiece A Night At The Opera. This was a lot of fun to cover and I mostly enjoyed getting to do the 3 part harmonies which of course was such an important part to Queen’s sound (later when we covered Flick Of The Wrist in the studio, I had fun doing all the 3 and 4 part harmonies myself!). This recording was taken from soundcheck in Copenhagen, but the version we played live was a few nights earlier at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. (We had to play it again at the Copenhagen soundcheck because the live version from London wasn’t up to snuff and I wanted to get a good version documented...).

2. Heart Of The Sunrise

Originally Recorded by Yes

Recorded at Soundcheck in Berlin, Germany – 2/2/04

This surely was one of the most difficult and complex covers we’ve ever done. It is a very untraditional arrangement and the instrumental passages are very dynamic and progressive. It’s been well documented how much of an influence Yes was on Dream Theater (especially the 4 instrumentalists in the band) and I very much see us a modern day, metal version of what they were to their generation in the 70’s. The version of this song that we played live was at The Zenith in Paris a few nights earlier, but this soundcheck version was pretty tight, so I chose this version instead.

3. Heaven And Hell

Originally Recorded by Black Sabbath

Recorded at Soundcheck in Dortmund, Germany – 1/30/04

When we covered this in 2004, I thought it was a forgotten metal classic. Since then, this lineup of Black Sabbath has reunited under the very same name which has now made this a very well-known song in the metal world. The Dio-era Sabbath made a couple of totally classic metal albums and DT was lucky enough to play several shows with them in 2007 and 2009 to witness their power from the same stage.

4. Paradox

Originally Recorded by Kansas

Recorded at Soundcheck in Kansas City, MO – 3/15/04

Kansas was always a favorite American progressive band from the 70’s and 80’s that often gets forgotten about in our list of influences. Steve Walsh has one of the greatest voices in rock and we actually invited him down to join us on stage for this cover... only to find out he actually lives in Georgia! When choosing specific songs for specific cities. how could I not choose a Kansas song for a Kansas gig? (Actually come to think of it, I should have done that for Chicago and Boston as well... damn, blew that one!) The funny thing is (and we didn’t find this out til afterwards) that the venue we played this at is actually on the Missouri side of Kansas City!

5. Mother Father

Originally Recorded by Journey

Recorded at Soundcheck in San Francisco, CA – 3/5/04

OK... I know that today in 2009 (or in 2004 when we recorded this), Journey is not considered very cool... but there’s no denying their influence on us. As had been noted elsewhere, the very first song James ever sang with us when he auditioned for Dream Theater in 1991 was Separate Ways. Steve Perry is still one of James’ all-time favorite singers... and there’s no denying the talents and influence of guitarist Neal Schon and drummer Steve Smith on me and John Petrucci.

This is a great, underappreciated song that I always wanted to cover... and when there’s one of those, I make sure to eventually do it!

6. Machine Messiah

Originally Recorded by Yes

Recorded Live at Jones Beach, NY – 8/28/04

Most of us are huge fans of the very underrated, only Anderson-less Yes album Drama. The first time I heard Machine Messiah, I couldn’t believe it was Yes... that opening was so HEAVY!!! The first time we covered this excerpt was for a Yes medley we played at the Ronnie Scott’s Uncovered show in 1995 where Steve Howe joined us (I remember John teaching the guitar parts to Steve in rehearsal...). When we were asked to tour with Yes in the summer of 2004, I couldn’t resist sneaking this excerpt into our set each night to satisfy all of the Yes fans that love that album as much as we do. At the last show of the tour in Monterrey Mexico, Alan White jumped up on my kit with me and played this with us. (And I can’t help but wonder if we sparked the idea for them to finally bring the song back in 2008... hmmm?)

7. Since I’ve Been Loving You

Originally Recorded by Led Zeppelin

Recorded Live in Chicago, IL – 7/19/03

This is a song that we originally covered several times in 1998 when Derek was still in the band, but for some reason I wanted to give it another shot as a one-off on the summer 2003 tour. Why this song on this one night in Chicago? There honestly was no rhyme or reason to this one... but I think it went down huge! JP doin’ his best bluesy-Page, James coppin’ Plant’s inhuman range and me gettin’ to play my hero Bonzo. (I took this a step further with my full-on Zep tribute band two years later...) This of course wasn’t the first time DT covered Zeppelin... that would be our Zeppelin medley at the Ronnie Scott’s Uncovered show in 1995 (documented on our A Change Of Seasons CD of course!)

8. Diary Of A Madman

Originally Recorded by Ozzy Osbourne

Recorded Live in Los Angeles, CA – 7/24/03

In my list of all-time favorite DT covers from throughout the years, this would surely be up there. This song is such an absolute classic (in fact, every song off the first 2 Ozzy/Randy Rhoads albums is...). But as much as I love this song, originally I wanted to cover the song Revelation (Mother Earth). For some reason, James had a strong objection to doing that particular song. In fact of the dozens (maybe hundreds?) of covers I’ve chosen for us to do; this was the first and only time I ever got an objection from a band member. But it worked out just fine in the end as Diary is such an amazing, intense song. This recording was taken from our show at the Universal Amphitheater (now called the Gibson Amphitheater) in LA in 2003.

9. Cemetery Gates

Originally Recorded by Pantera

Recorded Live in Grand Prairie, TX – 8/2/05

By the time 2005 rolled around, we were celebrating our 20th Anniversary and I was writing a setlist that went through the band’s history chronologically each night. So that tour did not have any “one-off covers”... with the exception of this one. We began the 2005 touring cycle by jumping on board the very first version of Megadeth’s Gigantour. Back in early 2004, I had decided we should cover this song as a one-off the next time we rolled through the Dallas area, but we ended up never playing in Texas on the Train Of Thought tour (this was before Dimebag was tragically killed...). The next time we played in Texas was on Gigantour and the Dimebag tragedy had happened months earlier.... so we finally got to cover it and its impact was now magnified tenfold because of the situation.

I decided to elevate the song from merely a “cover” to more of a “tribute”, and invited Symphony X’s Russell Allen, Fear Factory’s Burton C Bell and Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine to join us on stage for the song. It was a very special moment for everybody in attendance that night (on both sides of the stage). The next day, I received an email from Vinnie Paul who was at the show to tell me how moved he was by the tribute and that it meant the world to him (as his email did to me...).

10. Won’t Get Fooled Again

Originally Recorded by The Who

Recorded Live in Seattle, WA – 8/2/03

The summer of 2003 saw us taking a break from recording the Train of Thought CD to do a co-headlining tour with Queensrÿche (with our friends Fates Warning opening...). For both us and the fans, the highlight of these shows was the joint encore we did together each night after both of our individual sets were finished. Each night we would play a DT song (either The Spirit Carries On or Peruvian Skies), a QR song (either Take Hold Of The Flame or The Real World) and a cover (either The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again or Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb – which appears on the bonus disc of DT’s Dark Side Of The Moon Ytsejam Records CD... plug, plug!)

This live version is the last song from the last show of that tour (in Queensrÿche’s home of Seattle).