Octavarium: The Beethoven’s 9th of heavy metal or how I learned to love and embrace Dream Theater.
The decade of the 90’s was a very interesting and transitional decade in my musical journey. I still loved heavy metal and I was very loyal to the bands I got into during the 80’s. But where the 90’s became very difficult musically for me was when heavy metal went through the power ballad phase. There are several power ballads that I absolutely love (“More Than Words” by Extreme, “Save Your Love” by Great White, and “Patience” by Guns n’ Roses are three of my very favorite metal power ballads). However, it got to a point with heavy metal where many metal bands felt like they had to do a power ballad (even Metallica did one) and heavy metal was softening up. In 1991, Nirvana put out Nevermind, which completely blew me away, greatly influenced my future musical direction, and to me was more metal than what metal was at that point. However, I still loved and was loyal to the heavy metal bands I grew up with, but Nirvana introduced me to a whole new music scene, specifically punk, and I started to explore a lot of music outside of the realm of heavy metal. Unfortunately, there was still some great heavy metal emerging through the 90’s that got lost in the shuffle while I was exploring other music. I think Rich Wilson, Dream Theater’s biographer and author of Lifting Shadows, Dream Theater’s official biography, summed up this period of the 90’s for the heavy metal scene while discussing the Dream Theater album ‘Awake’, “In spite of the plentiful redeeming features on Awake, press reviews were generally subdued. It must of course be remembered that it was released just as the shoegazing, miserable purveyors of the fad known as grunge were taking hold. The British press in particular seemed dazzled by the work of Kurt Cobain and his cohorts, and anything that wasn't based around three chords or packed with lyrics championing depression as a lifestyle choice was in for a hard ride”.
In 1992, I was initially introduced to Dream Theater when Salt Lake’s KBER used to play “Pull Me Under”, which I thought was a way awesome song, but it wasn’t quite enough for me to buy the CD of ‘Images and Words’. Two years later when Dream Theater released ‘Awake’, many of my friends who remained very loyal to metal after Nirvana made it introduced me again to Dream Theater. However, at this point it was 1994, I loved the early days of grunge (specifically Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots) but I did not really like the direction grunge and alternative rock went. At that point I am listening to a lot of Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Black Flag, The Misfits, Rollins Band, Sex Pistols, Danzig, and Ministry. I thought ‘Awake’ was an ok CD when my friends played it for me. But I was having issues with metal and I did not give ‘Awake’ a fair chance.
Now we travel forward in time to 2007. Dream Theater was coming to Salt Lake City on July 30, 2007, and several of my friends were way exited for the show. In addition, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., signed a proclamation making July 30, 2007, Dream Theater Day in the State of Utah. As it turns out the Utah Governor as well as two of his sons are huge fans of Dream Theater. I did not attend the concert, but several of my friends did and gave the show very rave reviews. At this point Dream Theater was on my radar. I thought to myself that the mere fact that Dream Theater was even able to survive the 90’s, a decade that was not friendly to their brand of progressive metal, was a pretty miraculous feat and I started to feel like perhaps I had misjudged them.
In October 2007 one evening I walked from my apartment to Graywhale CD by the University of Utah and started thumbing through CD’s and I eventually end up in Dream Theater’s section and I looked over a copy of ‘Octavarium’. I immediately noticed that the song ‘Octavarium’ was 24 minutes long. I have never shied away from long songs and I am a fan of the music of Genesis, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Yes, and Rush, all of which have few very lengthy songs that I just love. I thought to myself that the song ‘Octavarium’ is either the most boring jam session on Earth or it’s a total masterpiece, there just can’t be any middle ground. My curiosity got the better of me and I bought ‘Octavarium’ forgiving the fact that I had never heard any of the songs off of it.
Once I get back to my apartment I got cozy on my couch and put ‘Octavarium’ in my CD player. The moment the song ‘The Root of All Evil’ came across the speakers and my reaction was immediately “holy crap Batman!!!!” I could not believe how awesome this song was and I immediately turned my stereo up. The next song was ‘The Answer Lies Within’. It was the first mellow metal song I had heard in ages and I was impressed. In fact, it was awesome to hear a power ballad that was so much the opposite of the standard metal ballad. I was extremely impressed how Dream Theater could go from straight up metal to a power ballad so flawlessly. The rest of the CD was just as awesome and then it finally came time for the song ‘Octavarium’. The song begins with a very Pink Floyd like atmosphere and evolves through several movements and as the song progressed I was just more and more blown away by it and when I didn’t think the song could get any better, then the ‘Razor’s Edge’ movement begins and the orchestra joins in to wrap up the song, it was the most amazing song I had heard in ages. With ‘Octavarium’ Dream Theater pulled off a 24 minute masterpiece that I now hold in the same regard with the songs ‘2112’ by Rush,’Karn Evil 9’ by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, ‘And You and I’ by Yes, and ‘Supper’s Ready’ by Genesis. Within one year of my first listen of the CD of ‘Octavarium’ I would own all of Dream Theater’s CD’s.
When it’s all said and done, Dream Theater is the worst case of me misjudging a band in my musical journey. If I gave these guys half a chance back in 1992 I could have gotten into them in high school. However, because I did not rediscover and embrace Dream Theater until 2007 not only did I discover ‘Octavarium’, but I discovered an extensive catalog of amazing music and I felt like I had discovered a gold mine. In addition, Dream Theater reintroduced me to the metal scene which at that point I had not really followed since 1996. I have discovered so many great bands currently making awesome music through Dream Theater. Throughout their career Dream Theater has successfully combined everything that is awesome about heavy metal with everything that is awesome about progressive rock and have established themselves the premier band of the Progressive Metal scene, one of the best live bands in music, and they have some of the most serious and passionate fans and I am extremely glad to be one of them.
Dream Theater with Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr, and the Dream Theater Day Proclamation on July 30, 2007.
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