Drummer and DVD creative director Mike Portnoy plumed his personal archives for footage in order to provide fans with the ultimate tour souvenir. He assembled over three hours of complete live performances, taking footage from shows in Rotterdam, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Boston, Bangkok and Vancouver. The tracks were mixed and effectively brought to life by Kevin Shirley.
The end result is. DVD with poor visual quality chopping and changing scenes too often and the sound mix does not 'fit' with the video. Although it is definitely a live sound you are not convinced it is from the same gig as you are watching. There seems to be a disconnect between the two.
There is no presence to the audio so it doesn't'feel' live at all.
What is also unpleasant, and I remember this from seeing this tour live is Portnoy's constant spitting across the stage. He doesn't need to do this. I never saw any other drummer spit like a soccer player every five or ten minutes. It even gets a mention in the documentary as the roadie walks around cleaning it off the equipment calls Portnoy' the camel'.
It was about this time Portnoy started to take more control over what the band did. The rest of them should never allowed the release of this sub standard DVD. It doesn't look authentic. At first I thought it was my equipment but no.
Portnoy was a great asset to the band for many years and he was fantastic with the fans and I will always remember and thank him for his contribution to Dream Theater. This DVD however was played once and will now gather dust.