Given that they’ve released 15 albums over the last three decades, Dream Theater could probably do a different anniversary tour every year. As vocalist James LaBrie tells ABC Audio, that’s something the long-running prog metal outfit has been considering more lately.
“We’re going, ‘You know, there’s this album and it’s coming up on its 20th [anniversary],’ or, ‘This album’s coming up, or already has had its 20th or 25th,'” LaBrie explains. “We’re starting to say, ‘You know, maybe in the future with our world tours to come, maybe we should start saying and paying homage to this album, and giving this album homage and this album homage.'”
Those kinds of anniversary tours, LaBrie feels, would be a treat for Dream Theater fans.
“We know that there are those albums — whether it be [2002’s] Six Degrees [of Inner Turbulence], whether it be [2003’s] Train of Thought, whether it be [2005’s] Octavarium, and so on and so forth — where the fans are going, ‘Oh my God, they’re freakin’ playing that album … you gotta hear it!'”
LaBrie assures fans that focusing more on anniversary tours in the future wouldn’t preclude Dream Theater from recording new albums. In fact, they previously launched a tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their 1999 opus, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, while also playing songs off their 2019 album, Distance over Time. However, the outing was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was unfortunate about the pandemic hitting,” LaBrie says. “A lot of people missed out on that.”
Dream Theater is currently on the road with the band’s Dreamsonic touring festival, which concludes July 26 in Phoenix.
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