John Petrucci Solo - LIVE in Tokyo

~ one of his best ever in my opinion.


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BONUS:   Here is Mike Portnoy's take on the writing of "The Best of Times". (Source)

G3 - La Grange (LIVE)

Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and John Petrucci cover ZZ-Top's "La Grange" live in Tokyo


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Too bad Steve's a little too loud, so you can't hear them together when they're playing together late in the song. His style is a little "out there" for La Grange too. Still awesome, however.

Liquid Tension Experiment - Acid Rain (LIVE)

in LA, 2008


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This is just another example that proves my feeling that John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy were BORN to play together. So tight. I love it. And you know what? Replace Tony Levin with John Myung, and you have Dream Theater without their singer. Not that you didn't know this. How beautiful is this?

John Petrucci Introduces His New Pedal

Here is a Blabbermouth article about Dream Theater's John Petrucci's new modulation pedal.

"The Dreamscape has four knobs: Speed, Depth, FX Level and one that chooses between the six integrated signature tones and one additional TonePrint. Further, the pedal has a three-way switch for toggling between Bright, Normal and Dark, which is an overall tonal shaping feature chosen
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by Petrucci. Finally, The Dreamscape also contains all of the great features included in other TonePrint pedals such as true bypass, one-screw-battery-access and a sturdy design made for life on the road." (Source)

Most importantly, here is the video contained in the article:

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The effects. The imagination. This is only a tiny part of why JP is the best guitarists of all time.

Dream Theater Minus Portnoy

I am sickened.

The greatest drummer who has ever lived has just made the stupid decision to leave my favorite of all-time band. No, Neil Peart didn't leave Rush. But that's the only analogy I can think of, other than Michael Jordan Leaving the Bulls in 1993 to go play for the Lakers. Or maybe Jerry Seinfeld leaving his own show around season #5 or #6 and choosing to go start his own cooking show.

I am thoroughly sickened that someone would let go of their dream. I don't honestly know if it is Mike Portnoy's dream to be a major factor in Dream Theater for 25 years.. or much longer. It would be mine!

As I posted a few hours ago, Mike Portnoy has decided to leave Dream Theater. I have no idea what he's thinking. Perhaps he's drunk? Or smoking crack. A heroin binge? What a stupid thing to do. Avenged Sevenfold is who he's recently been touring with - filling in for them due to the death of their drummer. Avenged Sevenfold is 1/100th of what Dream Theater is! And the other side projects Portnoy is involved in are probably even less than that in the eyes of most of his fans. DT is MP (and John Petrucci), but more importantly MP is DT!

I honestly don't think I would be as upset and pissed at the same time had the guy been killed in a horrible accident or something! At least that would leave lasting memories of his legacy, legend, and future. As it is now, Dream Theater will certainly struggle to maintain what popularity they did have. In my opinion it was never as high as it should have been. A ton of the millions of DT fans would say that a lot of what DT did have - was in fact mostly because of Mike Portnoy.

I know the other guys are extremely talented, and I sincerely wish John Petrucci the best.. because it's gonna be even harder now. Holy cow..

C'mon Mike - please change your mind. Tons of us will never go to another DT concert without you there. Yeah you got that right.