As he said in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Mike Portnoy thinks Dream Theater fans will cry at the reunion shows.
While talking about how they’ll feel at their first London show on October 20, the drummer referred to touring with John Petrucci in 2022 and explained:
“On John’s tour, we’d look out and see grown men crying every single night. And now we’re looking forward to a whole bunch more people crying each and every night. If they were crying for just the two of us, think about what’s going happen with five of us.”
Bassist John Myung added after Portnoy’s words:
“We should sell tissue boxes.”
How Did Portnoy Rejoin Dream Theater?
The band recently announced the show dates of their 40th anniversary tour. Portnoy hasn’t performed with Dream Theater in 14 years. In the same chat, the drummer admitted that before COVID-19, he didn’t think a reunion would happen. Then, he discussed how he reconnected with the other members of Dream Theater during the pandemic:
“But once we were all locked down, John [Petrucci] asked me to play on his solo album. Then, from there, Jordan [Rudess], John, and myself did the Liquid Tension Experiment album. And then I did John’s tour. So there were just these series of events of reconnecting us — not only on a musical level but also on a personal level for many years prior to that.”
Mike Will Decide On The Band’s Setlist
After his return, the band gave the drummer control over choosing the setlist for their upcoming concerts. Mike told in an interview with the Pure Saturation radio show:
“They have expressed to me that they kind of have been missing it and that they kind of want me to take the reins with the setlist and with the ideas of crazy sets and crazy shows and unique things. It seems to me — I mean, John Petrucci and I talked about it briefly. I think he really wants me to take those reins again. So fingers crossed that it will evolve naturally and organically to get to that point soon enough, because it really is such a unique thing, and I know a lot of the Dream Theater fans have missed it in the last decade or so, so it would be nice to interject it back in.”
Dream Theater’s fall tour starts on October 20 in London and ends on November 24 in Amsterdam, with shows in many European cities in between. The band plans to continue touring in 2025. In addition to the tour, Dream Theater completed writing sessions for its new album last week.
