Ticket prices for the first nine rows had dropped from over $300 and $187 down to $62.50, which is what the regular floor seats had cost. There were only 1,100 fans in the 1,649-seat venue, with many fans likely turned off by the initially high ticket prices.

It was a mixed crowd. The progressive rock nerds and hippie fans were out in force. They'd shown up to see Zappa Plays Zappa, the band led by Dweezil Zappa that plays Frank Zappa's music. Everyone else appeared to be Dream Theater fans.

Openers Scale The Summit were a bit of an oddity with two lead guitarists, a bassist and a drummer but no lead singer or keyboardist. Keyboards are usually de rigeur for progressive rock bands. Fortunately, they were quite entertaining with their tight, intricate instrumentals. They were also surprisingly adept and earned standing ovations from some people. I thought they looked like they were barely out of their teens.

Next up were a strange-looking group, the oddly named Bigelf. They were mostly bearded and looked as if they'd survived living in a swamp since in the '70s. Lead singer Damon Fox played two keyboards and wore a top hat that would have made Slash proud. They had a heavy sound, but weren't overly loud. Imagine progressive rock mixed with Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and a bit of Jethro Tull. I wasn't crazy about these guys. As with a lot of progressive rock, for many who are only hearing it for the first time it can be difficult to follow, yielding descriptions of such music as pretentious. On the other hand, there are always magical moments, which may or may not make up for some of the genre's seemingly overindulgent, instrumental noodling. 

Zappa Plays Zappa were an eight-piece band, a bit smaller than the incarnation that gave their first-ever performance at Winnipeg's Concert Hall on July 18, 2007. That was a special show, with the band playing along to synchronized video footage of Frank Zappa. This time around saw some different players, including a tall, young guy who sang the quirky vocal parts that Frank would have sang. The music of Frank Zappa can be quite busy and challenging to listen to and I fear they may have lost many in the audience who were there to see one band in particular, namely headliners Dream Theater. Still, Dweezil looked really pleased, nodding and smiling a lot to acknowledge the generous applause and standing ovations that the group received.

Article Author: Triniman

Almost weekly, Triniman catches new movies, and adds one or two CDs to his collection. Due to time constraints, he blogs about only 5% of the CDs, books and DVDs that he purchases. Holed up in the geographic centre of North America, the cultural …

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