DISC ONE:

As I Am

This Dying Soul

Under A Glass Moon

Keyboard Solo

Through My Words

Fatal Tragedy

Hollow Years

War Inside My Head

The Test That Stumped Them All

Endless Sacrifice

Finally Free

DISC TWO:

Honor They Father

The Ones Who Help To Set The Sun

Another Day (w/Living After Midnight teaser)

A Mind Beside Itself: Erotomania, Voices, The Silent Man

In The Name Of God

Metropolis Part 1

Unless you’re a lapsed Prog fan with a taste for Queensryche-styled metal you probably are oblivious to Dream Theater. Not that the group’s Deadhead-like fans (90% of them males, all either having their own bands or working at music gear stores) could care less; trust me when I tell ya that they are quite secure in their own convictions that they are smarter and cooler than you precisely because they are into D.T. We’ll leave the reductive arguments to bloggers, however, for what we have at hand is, objectively speaking, a near-flawless live recording of the band on the Train Of Thought World Tour 2004, from the European leg that started in the UK on Jan. 6 and wound up in Portugal on Feb. 12. The Madrid concert was the next-to-last show of the tour and it was broadcast via the Radio 3 digital satellite network and CDRs of the broadcast quickly hit the trading circuit. D.T. collectors, as suggested, have a Deadhead-like approach to treeing and trading shows, and while I’ve seen mention on a couple of lists that there’s a soundboard recording of the show I’m betting it’s just another dub of the broadcast, although it’s worth noting that the sonics of a digital broadcast have a  noticeably different quality or ambience to them than the FM broadcasts we were raised on, so it’s not surprising that some might call this a soundboard.

Godfather handily nabbed its own copy of the broadcast and quickly pressed it up, in the process housing the two discs in stellar Godfather fashion. The sturdy cardboard stock sleeve opens up tri-fold, like an old triple album but with only two pockets for the records; the artwork is gorgeous, very colorful with a collage effect interspersed with photos of the players and credits/track listings. (No booklet, however.) The discs themselves come in cello-lined paper sleeves of their own. Easily as nice a package as anything you’ll find from a big-budget major label – one of Godfather’s trademarks. --OSWALD