**** Live at Budokan by Dream Theater – Far From Bad, but also Far From Essential

Let’s face it; Dream Theater is better in the studio than live.  Live at Budokan isn’t bad at all though.  The mix does suffer a bit.  Live at Budokan sounds like an assembly of songs with less sound quality than a studio disc, and it doesn’t even serve well as a greatest hits package because there is never a song that seems like parts of it aren’t filler.
Why Dream Theater bothers releasing anything but their best live stuff is beyond me.  All the way back to “Once In a LIVEtime” they released a cd where James LaBrie’s voice was hoarse.  Why on earth that they would have picked this, one of the last stops on that tour to make a live set (for Once in a LIVEtime) is perplexing?  They did the same thing when they practically wasted the first cd of Live Scenes from New York.  Disc 2 was great off that one, but when they played the entire Scenes from a Memory from start to finish on Disc one, on that particular day in New York it was a catastrophe, IMHO.
Most bands never come close to being this good, and that is where the 4th star comes from.  However, what Dream Theater is doing with disc sets like Live at Budokan is saturating an already saturate market.  I would scarcely miss this one if I no longer had it.  Additionally, there is enough good prog metal that makes this even further nonessential.
It is a good set of three discs and all 3 are good, but it is just no where near as good as their average studio album, and they have plenty of studio albums by now, well maybe.  It does seem like I always end up craving a new Dream Theater album.
I have been burnt enough on Dream Theater’s low quality live albums that I am not looking for the next live album coming down the pike.  For example, I am not even going to waste my time on Live at Luna Park.  I am not going to say DT can’t play live.  They proved that they are one of the best live acts on earth when they released Score.  However, for the most part their live acts are a disappointment.  Even the times when I have personally seen them live, the band seems to lack personality, and can’t compare with more suave acts like Queensryche.
Granted it seems like there is not a track that doesn’t have both a highlight, and also lull.  But, for the most of the part, I wouldn’t reach for this one off the shelf, having a chance to listen to others is because the bulk of this material has dry parts, or parts that are cheesy in quality or lack feeling.

**** Live at Budokan by Dream Theater – Spotty. Buy It If You Are A Fanatic. Skip It If You Are Not.

This was my first indication that the album 6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence was not a total loss. Score proved that without a doubt, and so did 4 Degrees of Radio Edits. Score is a 5 by any standard, and those that criticize are not correct, they are wrong, but that is not this album.

Now, I know that I am in the minority, as most fans loved 6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence. My major criticism of that album, 6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence, is that the songs on it are too repetitious. For some reason on Live at Budokan, songs from that album don’t bother me as much.

There are definitely some tracks on this one that are not as good as they could have been. If they took Live at Budokan into the studio, and worked some magic, I might have loved this album. For example, “In the Name of God,” has an absolutely incredible guitar solo, but LaBrie is a little lacking on that song, and there are a few times when it sounds like the show nearly falls apart given a little improvisation. That is how this album goes. Usually, it is not perfect like a studio album, and Dream Theater is the type of band that needs to sounds perfect, or else they sound like they are playing under their own ability levels!

Sometimes Jordan’s keyboard sounds cheesy, sometimes John Petrucci’s guitar sounds cheesy, James LaBrie’s voice sometimes sounds awesome, other times it needs some help, and the bass is almost non-existent. Mike Portnoy comes across very well.

This is not an essential Dream Theater album IMHO. With Dream Theater, you can expect to hear flawlessness, especially with their studio albums, but as usual, and with Live at Budokan, the live albums Dream Theater releases are spotty.