Dream Theater Concert Review
Chicago Theater, 3.8.2025
Words: Chad Lakies
Images: Jon Fiala Photography
The paragons of progressive metal stunned a sold-out crowd in Chicago Saturday evening, March 8. Playing for just over three hours, Dream Theater’s first moments on stage were some of the most emotional for longtime fans in more than a decade. The return of drummer Mike Portnoy has been a highlight of the band’s current 40th Anniversary tour, currently winding down their North American leg.
The set drew from across their catalogue of 16 albums over the past 40 years. Supported by one of the most ambitious and dazzling light and video shows this writer has seen the band use, the crowd was mesmerized visually and awed sonically, on their feet for the entirety of two sets and an extended encore.
Fans were treated to opening and closing tracks that took us back to definitive favorites from the Images and Words album. “Metropolis Pt.1” opened the show and immediately elevated the collective mood of everyone who had come to finally see Mike Portnoy back on the kit he departed 13 years ago. The energy and joy from the band was palpable as they kicked into the iconic track that long ago established them as masters of progressive metal. From this beginning, the show’s energy never waned, even as the band wrapped three hours of playing with “Pull Me Under,” the driving pulse of the song bringing the audience’s hands into the air to clap along and singer James Labrie holding his microphone out over the crowd who lent their voices to the classic chorus.
In between, the band moved across several albums in their catalogue. The opening instrumental track “Overture 1928” proceeded into the driving song that sets the stage for story-based concept album Scenes from a Memory. The first set also included some long-unheard lyrical material in the demo version of “Hollow Years” from Falling into Infinity. Some Mangini era tracks were masterfully handled by Portnoy, including “This is the Life” and “Barstool Warrior.” Wrapping the first set were the contrasting sounds and imagery of “Under a Glass Moon,” also from Images and Words, followed by the dense aural weightiness of “The Dark Eternal Night” from Systematic Chaos.
The band returned to the stage after a short break to feature two songs from their most recent release, Parasomnia. These two tracks were perhaps one of the most exciting highlights of this tour, foreshadowing future legs in which the band will play the new album in its entirety. “Night Terror” and “Midnight Messiah” sounded absolutely killer, and there was a freshness about these new additions that reflected the indelible chemistry of the band’s founding members reunited once again. The second set also included “Vacant,” the quieter mid-point of perhaps the band’s heaviest album, Train of Thought, which moved immediately into the grinding powerhouse instrumental “Stream of Consciousness.” The epic “Octavarium” has been a favorite of the current tour with various intense and diverse instrumental sections, each building and coalescing toward a set of eight short spoken-word verses that forcefully culminate in the song’s powerful ending.
As has become the norm for “An Evening With” style Dream Theater shows, an extended encore brought the band back for another more than 30-minute set. The encore included two more tracks from Scenes from a Memory. The intermittently subtle and at other times bombastic “Home” kept the crowd on their feet, fancifully preceded by a scene from The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy clicks her red heels together while saying, “there’s no place like home.” One wonders if, having once again taken on the duty of establishing the band’s set lists, Mike Portnoy was subtly offering a message to the audience, reflecting how deeply happy he is to be “home” again with his oldest friends and musical collaborators.
Before “Pull Me Under” put an exclamation point on a tremendous show, the guys rolled into the deeply emotional crowd favorite “The Spirit Carries On.” Hearing a room full of people of all ages singing along to what has become something of a unifying hymn that connects generations of Dream Theater fans was perhaps one of the most moving moments of the evening.
Departing the stage with their signature collective bow to the audience, the crowd continued to resonate with the intensity of what they had just heard and seen—the celebration of an anniversary and the beginning of Dream Theater’s next season. Fans can’t be more excited for what else is to come.
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