Symphony X — 013, Tilburg, Netherlands, 9 December 2000

Joenkie Liem

I was really lucky that I was able to attend this concert of Symphony X on their V Tour in the first place. I study in the US and I come home (Holland) once a year. The concert was originally scheduled for November 22, and I would not have been able to go had they played on the original date. But it was moved to December 9 due to logistical problems!

I went by myself, since I only know one person who likes this kind of music, and that is me. When I came to the 013, I was surprised that it was not that crowded. I had never been to this venue before, and it does not seem like a very big place. I immediately noticed the large amount of Dream Theater T-shirts walking around, and the similarities between the two bands have always been very apparent to me.

I expected the band to play the new album V in its entirely, since it is a concept album. I ended up being wrong.

When they started playing, I found that the classical influenced intro of Prelude sounded so much better live than on the album. I have listened to V the whole summer, so I was pretty much familiar with what would come.

The performance was really good. I was a pleasantly surprised after I heard some MP3s of a previous concert a couple of years ago where they sounded good, but not great. The classical elements of the music were really emphasised live a lot more than on the album, and Allen's voice sounded terrific.

I think that Allen's voice is one the most valuable assets to the band, his wide vocal range makes him a good bridge between the classical influences and the raw parts of the music.

The so-called "segues", the short instrumental parts that stitch the songs together on the album, were truly magnificent, just beautiful. I was standing next to someone who had not heard the album before, and we were both just completely in awe. The highlight of the concert came in the middle of The Death Of Balance / Lacrymosa.

They took a 30 second break, and then started to play my favorite Symphony X song: Candlelight Fantasia. Again, I was amazed by Allen's voice, which sounded so clear, with no signs of fatigue (this was the last gig in the tour) or anything like that. At this point, I realized that I like Allen's vocals more than Dream Theater's Labrie, at least live; I still consider DT my all-time favorite band, and I have seen them twice in the last 6 months, but Labrie's voice, while excellent on the studio albums, sounded a bit off-tone at times. Of course, this may have to to with the fact that DT does much bigger tours but still...

After Candlelight, they did not, as I expected, continue the rest of the album but they started to do some old stuff instead. This did not bother me a bit, as I enjoyed the rest of the concert a lot.

Symphony X is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated prog-metal bands out there. After seeing this concert, I regret it so much that they can only do so many concerts and they could be as successful as Dream Theater with the right marketing.

I truly admire their technical ability, and how they make everything seem easy. Allen is a great frontman, dancing silly on stage and joking around with bandmembers and audience.

Entrance was really cheap — NLG 17,50 — and the only thing that sucked was that I could not buy a T-shirt as they had been sold out when I came. Overall, this was an awesome concert and I would travel great lengths to see them again.

Martijn Semmelink

So here it is, a "little" review of this wonderful night! If you have a chance to see them live, get it. You will be impressed!

At 8:45 we (two friends and I) arrived at 013 in Tilburg and prepared ourselves for the coming gig with some nice Tilburgian beer. At 9:10 we founded ourselves a nice place before the stage.

Five minutes later, the intro tape started. It was the intro of the new album V, but without any drums and guitars. Just orchestra, which was pretty cool. After that the band started with the Grand Design.

The first thing we noticed was that the sound was extremely BAD! Drums were way too loud and the sound-engineer was flipping with the volume-knots during the first 2 or 3 songs. So, that means that the first 15 - 20 minutes of the concert where not really pretty to listen to. But the sound was improving very well during the concert and at the end we had a very good sound though.

The next song was Fallen from V. I thought, wow, there gonna play the whole thing!? The sound was still not good, but the band played the song flawless.

After this, they started Transcendce (segue) which leads into Communion and the Oracle. This song was one of my highlights of the evening, cause it's my favorite song in V. The sound quality was pretty much improved. So it was time for some flesh creeps. After this song they played The Bird Serpent / Catalysm, On the Breath of Poseidon (Romeo added a solo in the beginning) and the song Egypt.

Then it was time for another highlight: The Death Of Balance / Lacrymosa. I hoped they would play this instrumental, and they did! This song was really for Jason, to prove his drumming skills. He played it flawlessly, he's a god. The choir part in this song wasn't played though, but they started with Candlelight Fantasia. Again a highlight! They didn't play the whole thing, only 2 or 3 minutes. Toooooooooooo bad.

Then I lost the order of the songs, but they played the following "old shit": Dressed to Kill (from Damnation Game), Smoke and Mirrors (from Twilight In Olympus), Church of the Machine and Sea of Lies (from Divine Wings Of Tragedy)

Then it was time for a break. After 5 minutes, Rusell got back on the stage with a some kind entertaining act, which was pretty funny though. He said that there was a problem, because he couldn't find the other band members. He liked to play a few other songs, but without band members, no chance. So he asked the crowd to scream for the band members. He introduced every one on stage, and it was time for a few other songs.

The third highlight was Through the Looking Glass! IMO, the best song on Twilight, and they played it perfectly.

The last song was Of Sins And Shadows, the first song on Divine Wings Of Tragedy, with that Queen-ish vocal part. Uhm, yeah, the vocal part, this was the only negative thing. The vocal part was from tape, but they did their best to mime, so it seemed that they did it live. Yeah, right...

Russell Allen thanked the crowd for their support and after the well-known drumsticks and pick throwing act, the band left the stage. I had high expectations of this night, and it was even better than what I expected.

A few notes on each of the musicians...

Micheal Romeo: Man, thing guy is fantastic. He plays al his solos on a way that guitar-playing looks like nothing. He was definitely the man of the show, though he's not really a showman.

Rusell Allen: What a voice, and what a power. In the beginning he seemed to be a little curious about his reach. He was avoiding the higher notes a bit. But he was getting better during the show, which was fantastic!

Jason Rullo: If one man deserves to be in the spotlight, it is Jason. He played the whole show as tight as he could! I saw a few reviews of him, that he made a lot of mistakes during some shows etc. I haven't heard any, he was almost perfect.

Mike LePond: Hahahaha, this guy is FUNNY! The way he jumps around with his ugly bass guitar was really enjoyable. Yeah, his bass guitar was really ugly... A red metal-like guitar, that those death-metal and black-metal bands use a lot. You know, those bands where the members are trying their best to look evil, with a weirdly shaped guitar. Anyway, he proved that his skills where flawless, and he's the man for Symphony X! One tip: do get another haircut...

Michael Pinella: Why does somebody throw a curtain over his keyboard-setup? Is he not proud of his keyboards? I play keyboards myself, and it was a little confusing. The only part where you could see the man playing was during the solos. He did that on a purple synth, a Yamaha or something. But you couldn't see the other keyboards, because there was a huge black curtain hanging before it.

I don't know why they did that, but it was not really pretty to see. Anyway, I like his playing because of his melodies. It always reminds me of Kevin Moore, who has created awesome melodies but was a master of solos too. Pinella not so much. His solos are just fast, and skilled. But musical? Not to me. So, he didn't impress me that much during this concert. Actually, you couldn't figure out his solos, because you couldn't hear them. This was of course the sound-engineer's mistake.