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Dream theater announces more ‘images, words & beyond’ dates.

The tour will feature an unparalleled live set of ‘Images And Words’ in its entirety, along with fan favorites from their deep, widely acclaimed catalog.

Dream Theater have announced the third and final leg of their “Images, Words & Beyond” tour, which sees the pioneering group celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its milestone RIAA-gold-certified album Images And Words . The North American headline dates kick off October 25 at Oakland’s Fox Theatre. The trek takes the band throughout the US, including dates at NYC’s Beacon Theatre and L.A.’s Wiltern, as well as a stop at the Sony Centre in Toronto.

Like previous legs, the show will be presented as an “Evening With Dream Theater,” with no opening act. The tour will feature an unparalleled live set of Images And Words in its entirety, along with fan favorites from their deep, widely acclaimed catalog.

Said founding guitarist John Petrucci of the upcoming trek: “We are so psyched to bring our ‘Images, Words & Beyond’ tour to North America this fall! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 25 years since Images was released! We’ve been having a blast playing those songs each night, and sharing memories and stories from our time in the studio back in 1992. We know that this is such an important album to so many of our fans, both old and new, so we plan on making this a really special night by playing Images And Words in its entirety as well as breaking out some rare material, and a few of our latest tunes, in order to make this landmark evening compete. We hope to see all of you there! Don’t miss it.”

Dream Theater recently concluded the European leg of the “Images, Words & Beyond” tour, playing to sold-out crowds across Europe. The upcoming North American run caps off a year-long celebration of Images & Words . After a short break in early 2018, the band will return to the studio to begin work on a follow-up to their most recent opus, The Astonishing .

Tour dates:

Oct. 25 – Oakland, CA – Fox Theater Oct. 26 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern Oct. 28 – Phoenix, AZ – Celebrity Theatre Oct. 29 – ABQ, NM – Kiva Auditorium Oct. 31 – Denver, CO – Paramount Theater Nov. 02 – Wichita, KS – Orpheum Theatre Nov. 03 – Chicago, IL – Chicago Theater Nov. 04 – Peoria, IL – Peoria Civic Center Nov. 06 – Cincinnati, OH – Taft Theater Nov. 08 – Pittsburgh, PA – Palace Theatre Nov. 09 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Nov. 10 – Buffalo, NY – Rapids Theatre Nov. 12 – Toronto, ON – Sony Centre Nov. 14 – Albany, NY – The Palace Theater Nov. 15 – Boston, MA – Orpheum Theatre Nov. 16 – New York, NY – Beacon Theater Nov. 18 – Asbury, Park, NJ – Paramount Theater Nov. 19 – Philadelphia, PA – Merriam Theatre Nov. 27 – Baltimore, MD – The Lyric Nov. 28 – Raleigh, NC – Memorial Auditorium Nov. 29 – Nashville, TN – War Memorial Aud. Dec. 01 – Austin, TX – Bass Hall Dec. 02 – Dallas, TX – The Pavilion Dec. 03 – Houston, TX – Cullen PAC

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Dream Theater Announce ‘Images & Words’ 25th Anniversary North American Tour

Great news for fans of Dream Theater . The popular progressive metal act will be embarking on a tour this summer celebrating their sophomore  Images & Words  which turns 25 this year.

Earlier this year, Dream Theater brought their "Images, Words & Beyond"   tour to Europe earlier this winter. The band mentioned bringing the tour stateside, so it's exciting to finally see dates for the tour. The trek begins Oct. 25 in Oakland, and runs all the way through Dec. 3 in Houston, Texas.

Of the upcoming tour, guitarist John Petrucci says, “We are so psyched to bring our 'Images, Words & Beyond' tour to North America this fall! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 25 years since Images was released! We’ve been having a blast playing those songs each night, and sharing memories and stories from our time in the studio back in 1992. We know that this is such an important album to so many of our fans, both old and new, so we plan on making this a really special night by playing I&W in its entirety as well as breaking out some rare material, and a few of our latest tunes, in order to make this landmark evening compete. We hope to see all of you there! Don’t miss it."

The band's sophomore record would go on to help define their sound for years to come, ending up as one of the best second releases for any band ever. Check to see where the band is gigging below:

Dream Theater  Images, Words & Beyond  North American Tour 2017

Oct. 25 - Oakland, Calif. @ Fox Theater Oct. 26 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Wiltern Oct. 28 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Celebrity Theatre Oct. 29 - Albuquerque, N.M. @ Kiva Auditorium Oct. 31 - Denver, Colo. @ Paramount Theater Nov. 02 - Wichita, Kan. @ Orpheum Theatre Nov. 03 - Chicago, Ill. @ Chicago Theater Nov. 04 - Peoria, Ill. @ Peoria Civic Center Nov. 06 - Cincinnati, Ohio @ Taft Theater Nov. 08 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Palace Theatre Nov. 09 - Detroit, Mich. @ The Fillmore Nov. 10 - Buffalo, N.Y. @ Rapids Theatre Nov. 12 - Toronto, Ontario @ Sony Centre Nov. 14 - Albany, N.Y. @ The Palace Theater Nov. 15 - Boston, Mass. @ Orpheum Theatre Nov. 16 - New York, N.Y. @ Beacon Theater Nov. 18 - Asbury Park, N.J. @ Paramount Theater Nov. 19 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ Merriam Theatre Nov. 27 - Baltimore, Md. @ The Lyric Nov. 28 - Raleigh, N.C. @ Memorial Auditorium Nov. 29 - Nashville, Tenn. @ War Memorial Aud. Dec. 01 - Austin, Texas @ Bass Hall Dec. 02 - Dallas, Texas @ The Pavilion Dec. 03 - Houston, Texas @ Cullen PAC

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Dream Theater Announce ‘Images & Words’ 25th Anniversary Tour

Dream Theater has announced a fall/winter North American tour that will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their sophomore album, Images & Words .

Of the tour, guitarist John Petrucci said, “We are so psyched to bring our ‘Images, Words & Beyond’ tour to North America this fall! It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 25 years since Images was released! We’ve been having a blast playing those songs each night, and sharing memories and stories from our time in the studio back in 1992."

"We know that this is such an important album to so many of our fans, both old and new, so we plan on making this a really special night by playing I&W in its entirety as well as breaking out some rare material, and a few of our latest tunes, in order to make this landmark evening compete," Petrucci added. "We hope to see all of you there! Don’t miss it.”

You can check out the tour dates below. For more info on Dream Theater, visit dreamtheater.net .

Dream Theater Images, Words & Beyond North American Tour 2017

• Oct. 25 – Oakland, Calif. @ Fox Theater
• Oct. 26 – Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Wiltern
• Oct. 28 – Phoenix, Ariz. @ Celebrity Theatre
• Oct. 29 – Albuquerque, N.M. @ Kiva Auditorium
• Oct. 31 – Denver, Colo. @ Paramount Theater
• Nov. 02 – Wichita, Kan. @ Orpheum Theatre
• Nov. 03 – Chicago, Ill. @ Chicago Theater
• Nov. 04 – Peoria, Ill. @ Peoria Civic Center
• Nov. 06 – Cincinnati, Ohio @ Taft Theater
• Nov. 08 – Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Palace Theatre
• Nov. 09 – Detroit, Mich. @ The Fillmore
• Nov. 10 – Buffalo, N.Y. @ Rapids Theatre
• Nov. 12 – Toronto, Ontario @ Sony Centre
• Nov. 14 – Albany, N.Y. @ The Palace Theater
• Nov. 15 – Boston, Mass. @ Orpheum Theatre
• Nov. 16 – New York, N.Y. @ Beacon Theater
• Nov. 18 – Asbury Park, N.J. @ Paramount Theater
• Nov. 19 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ Merriam Theatre
• Nov. 27 – Baltimore, Md. @ The Lyric
• Nov. 28 – Raleigh, N.C. @ Memorial Auditorium
• Nov. 29 – Nashville, Tenn. @ War Memorial Aud.
• Dec. 01 – Austin, Texas @ Bass Hall
• Dec. 02 – Dallas, Texas @ The Pavilion
• Dec. 03 – Houston, Texas @ Cullen PAC

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Watch Documentary On DREAM THEATER's 'Images, Words & Beyond' Tour

FreqsTV has produced a documentary on DREAM THEATER 's "Images, Words & Beyond" tour, which sees the pioneering group celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of its milestone RIAA -gold-certified album "Images And Words" .

In the thirteen-minute film, guitarist John Petrucci reflects on how the album came to fruition, the impact it had on their lives and how it still resonates with them and their fans.

The documentary was shot on location in Munich, Germany during the European leg of the "Images, Words & Beyond" tour.

Asked if he and his bandmates had a feeling during the recording process that "Images And Words" would turn out to be such an important album for them, Petrucci told Gitarre & Bass : "Well, we had no idea that it would end up doing what it did for us — basically launch our touring and international career as a band. That's really what it did. We had no idea, no. In fact, we didn't even write songs, really, that had that potential in that atmosphere, because all the things that were being played on the radio sounded nothing like DREAM THEATER , so we didn't really think we had a chance. They were playing NIRVANA and PEARL JAM . There was still some kind of '80-ish bands around and stuff. Even the band that David Prater , the producer, had done right before us was this band FIREHOUSE , and they were like a big pop-metal ballad band. So we didn't think we had any place. But we did feel really good about how the album came out. We felt very proud of it. We knew that it sounded good. I remember feeling really proud anytime I would play it for somebody. Like, 'Oh, you have to hear this. Check it out.' And the reaction was always, 'Wow! That sounds really good.' So we knew there was something there, but we had no idea what it would do for us."

Buoyed by the success of the album's first single, "Pull Me Under" , "Images And Words" eventually went gold in the U.S. and established the band as a standard-bearer for complex-yet-melodic progressive metal. The song and accompanying video received airtime on radio and MTV and expanded DREAM THEATER 's audience.

" 'Pull Me Under' was a surprise to everyone, 'cause 'Pull Me Under' is… it's over eight minutes long, never meant to be a single," Petrucci told Gitarre & Bass . "Again, the songs being played on the radio were nothing like DREAM THEATER , but, for some reason, it must have stuck out to where people were calling the radio stations: 'What is that band? Oh my God! I wanna hear that song again.' And that kind of snowballed and grew, and 'Pull Me Under' became a rock radio hit. And I remember at the time I was living in New Jersey, on the East Coast of the U.S., and I'd turn on the radio and I'd hear it all the time. It was a cool feeling."

Petrucci added that "Pull Me Under" is "probably" the most important song of DREAM THEATER 's career. "If you think about what it did for us as far as the future is concerned, it really put up on the map," he said. "It enabled us to go from local guys driving around in a van, playing to a few people in clubs to an international touring band with this whole long and very busy and productive career. And who knows? Without that kind of initial spark, we may never have been able to be as successful as we have. I mean, who knows? Maybe we would have. I don't know. But it certainly, certainly helped. Big time."

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• Consequence

30 Years Ago, Dream Theater Found Their Voice and Validation with Images and Words

A look back at the quintet’s seminal sophomore album

Although it demonstrated an enjoyable and quite innovative blend of 1980s heavy metal and 1970s progressive rock, Dream Theater ’s debut LP — 1989’s When Dream and Day Unite — didn’t exactly set the world aflame.

As discussed in Rich Wilson’s book Lifting Shadows: The Authorized Biography of Dream Theater , the main reasons for its lackluster reception and sales were poor production, poor marketing from Mechanic/MCA Records, and the incongruous nature of vocalist Charlie Dominici.

“[He] was 37 years old, kind of short and stocky with short curly hair, just didn’t look like one of us . . . it was always like trying to have Billy Joel sing with Queensrÿche or Iron Maiden. It just didn’t work,” founding drummer Mike Portnoy told Wilson.

Thankfully, a few bold but necessary changes (moving to ATCO Records, bringing on producer David Prater, and most importantly, replacing Dominici with James LaBrie) yielded a far more commercially and creatively lucrative follow-up: Images and Words .

Thirty years later, the LP is rightly regarded as one of their most rewarding and impactful works. With its superb songwriting and delightfully vibrant and refined instrumentation, it paved the way not only for their consequent records but for the trajectory of modern progressive metal in general.

Delving further into the addition of LaBrie, roughly 200 singers ( including Fates Warning’s John Arch) were auditioned before the remaining members landed on him. After spending a few days testing out their professional and personal chemistries, LaBrie’s towering vocal range and acquiescent personality made him the clear pick.

In a 2017 interview with the Official Dream Theater Fan Club, LaBrie revealed that he was initially hesitant to fly to New York to meet the troupe, as well as hesitant to potentially leave his current band, Winter Rose.

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Average setlist for tour: Images, Words & Beyond 25th Anniversary Tour

• Song played from tape The Colonel ( Two Steps From Hell  song) Play Video
• The Dark Eternal Night Play Video
• The Bigger Picture Play Video
• Hell's Kitchen Play Video
• The Gift of Music Play Video
• Our New World Play Video
• Portrait of Tracy ( Jaco Pastorius  cover) Play Video
• As I Am Play Video
• Breaking All Illusions Play Video
• Song played from tape Happy New Year 1992 Play Video
• Pull Me Under Play Video
• Another Day Play Video
• Take the Time Play Video
• Surrounded Play Video
• Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper Play Video
• Under a Glass Moon Play Video
• Wait for Sleep Play Video
• Learning to Live Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: I The Crimson Sunrise Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: II Innocence Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: III Carpe Diem Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: IV The Darkest of Winters Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: V Another World Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: VI The Inevitable Summer Play Video
• A Change of Seasons: VII The Crimson Sunset Play Video

Show Openers

Main set closers, show closers, encores played.

This feature is not that experimental anymore. Nevertheless, please give feedback if the results don't make any sense to you.

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Dream Theater kick of Images, Words and Beyond tour in Rome (See setlist)

The band performed the classic album in its entirety and more.

Dream Theater kicked off their Images, Words and Beyond Tour in Rome, Italy last night, Jan 30th and debuted quite an incredible setlist. The first set was comprised of a mix of a few older and newer songs, including 3 from The Astonishing. The second set was the entire Images and Words album, much of which has not been played since the 2012 tour. The amazing surprise was the performance of “A Change of Seasons” as the encore. This was the first time the 25 min-song had been played since 2004.

Act 1 The Dark Eternal Night The Bigger Picture Hell’s Kitchen The Gift of Music A Life Left Behind Our New World The Spirit Carries On John Myung Solo As I Am Breaking All Illusions

Act 2: Images and Words Pull Me Under Another Day Take the Time Surrounded Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper Under a Glass Moon Wait for Sleep Learning to Live

Encore: A Change of Seasons: I The Crimson Sunrise A Change of Seasons: II Innocence A Change of Seasons: III Carpe Diem A Change of Seasons: IV The Darkest of Winters A Change of Seasons: V Another World A Change of Seasons: VI The Inevitable Summer A Change of Seasons: VII The Crimson Sunset

Here is a short clip from “Learning to Live” from the show.

[…] post Dream Theater kick of Images, Words and Beyond tour in Rome (See setlist) appeared first on The Prog […]

[…] The band are currently on tour supporting the 25th anniversary of their landmark album Images & Words, which you can find out about here. […]

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Dream Theater: “Images, Words & Beyond” at the Forum Karlín, Prague

When Dream Theater announced that they were beginning a special tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their second album Images and Words , my first reaction (aside from figuratively running online to buy tickets) was to wonder at the fact that Dream Theater has released albums older than I am, and are still going pretty strong. While the last truly excellent album they released was 2003’s Train of Thought , 2005’s Octavarium was relatively strong (though overly-reliant on music theory geekery), and 2011’s A Dramatic Turn of Events had some interesting sonic (if not lyrical) moments.

I had first begun listening to Dream Theater during my junior year of high school, where 1999’s Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory and 1992’s Images and Words quickly piqued my fascination and launched a minor obsession with the band, culminating in my hunting down the rare Falling Into Infinity (1997) demo sessions in the winter of my junior year of college. To this day, I will insist that the transition from “Goodnight Kiss” to “Solitary Shell” from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2001) is one of the best pieces of music ever written.

Yet it seemed that I largely came to the band too late to really revel in their peak — founding member and drummer virtuoso Mike Portnoy had been long gone, and the most recent albums had been 2007’s Systematic Chaos and 2009’s Black Clouds and Silver Linings , both of which linger at the bottom of my Dream Theater discography rankings. A Dramatic Turn of Events , which came out after I became a fan and featured the work of new drummer Mike Mangini, was more of a relief than anything particularly earth-shattering on the level of their earlier work, and their subsequent albums Dream Theater (2013) and The Astonishing (2016) failed to impress or even intrigue me much. I had the opportunity to see them live in 2011 during their tour for Turn of Events , but since the last few albums of theirs never really resonated with me, the setlist likewise didn’t make an impression. (I actually had to go back through my ancient Facebook notes to even remind myself what they had played that evening in Los Angeles.)

When the band announced that for their Astonishing tour, their setlist would consist solely of that album, my interest in seeing them was quashed. Yet when news of the “Images, Words & Beyond” tour dropped, I knew I had to find a way to see them play, because to this day Images and Words is still a fantastically and thoroughly enjoyable set of songs, including personal favorites such as “Under a Glass Moon” and “Take the Time”. Most of the songs on Images and Words had not been played live in years, adding to the novelty of it all, and ultimately leading to me buying tickets to a February concert in mid-November.

So Images and Words runs about an hour. Given Dream Theater’s propensity for long songs and longer shows, that left roughly two hours for them to fill. Fervently resisting the siren call of the spoilers of setlist.fm, I sat on the bus from Vienna to Prague consumed by fantasies of what the rest of the setlist would consist of. Would I finally, finally get to hear them play “The Dance of Eternity” ( Scenes from a Memory ), one of the most devilishly complicated songs in their repertoire? Would they close the show with a rousing rendition of “In the Name of God” ( Train of Thought ) or surprise me with a left-field performance of “Scarred” ( Awake , 1994)? On a more technical level, would vocalist James LaBrie manage to hit the high notes of Images and Words tracks like “Learning to Live”? Would I ever not feel Mike Portnoy’s absence, and would I come to appreciate Mike Mangini for his own merits?

Unfortunately, my dreams of a perfect setlist never came to fruition. Setting aside the performance of Images and Words in the second act of the show, much of the Prague show consisted of songs I actually never particularly liked from albums I never particularly liked — namely “The Dark Eternal Night” from Systematic Chaos and “The Bigger Picture” from Dream Theater . Dream Theater is not known for their lyrical prowess, and songs like “The Dark Eternal Night” only demonstrate this weakness while also not being that interesting to listen to. Images and Words had the benefit of previous keyboardist and excellent co-lyricist Kevin Moore alongside guitarist John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, and bassist John Myung, but after Moore’s mid-’90s departure there was a definite worsening of the words that went along with such intricate and technically proficient instrumentation.

The fact that The Astonishing is a concept album (a double concept album, no less), meant that taking two songs from the album and inserting them into the middle of a melange of songs across Dream Theater’s career also stuck out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, hearing the subtle, tense instrumental “Hell’s Kitchen” from the much-maligned Falling Into Infinity (which is actually pretty underrated) and the classic “As I Am” from Train of Thought were undeniably enjoyable, as was the spotlight given to Myung with a bass cover of “Portrait of Tracy” by Jaco Pistorius. The desire for a perfect setlist is obviously not attainable, but the choice of songs for the first act of the concert, to my mind, just didn’t play on the band’s strengths. As far as instrumentals go (so necessary to allow LaBrie to rest his voice during sets), “Stream of Consciousness” from Train of Thought and “The Dance of Eternity” are simply more engaging and exciting than “Hell’s Kitchen”, and I would have rather they scrapped the songs from Systematic Chaos , The Astonishing , and Dream Theater in favor of some truly great deep cuts from Awake like “Space-Dye Vest” or “The Silent Man.” At least they didn’t play “Wither” ( Black Clouds and Silver Linings ) or “Forsaken” ( Systematic Chaos ).

The second half of the show, in contrast, was a much more cohesive and impressive blast from the past. While “Pull Me Under”, the opening track of Images and Words and the band’s most successful single, is played fairly often at Dream Theater shows (it was the encore at the 2011 show I attended), it managed to build anticipation for the rest of the album to follow. While the first act gave Myung its chance to shine with a solo, “Another Day”, “Wait for Sleep” and “Learning to Live” provided the same for keyboardist and bald-headed wizard Jordan Rudess, “Take the Time” for John Petrucci, and “Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper” for Mangini. Mangini in particular finally won me over (after half a decade of missing Mike Portnoy) with his gleeful, exuberant demonstration of prowess with his massive drum set. John Petrucci, as always, made ripping out those guitar lines look so, so easy, his long hair blowing in the artificial breeze, arm muscles practically the same size as the body of his bright pink guitar.


Really, the only inconsistent technical aspect of the show in its entirety was, and, it seems, will forever continue to be LaBrie. After the infamous food-poisoning incident in the late-’90s that damaged his vocal chords, he has really never sounded the same. What was a voice almost akin to Freddie Mercury’s, with incredible range, projection, and emotive capabilities on Images and Words and Awake has since become weaker, narrower, and more nasal, especially live, and when it comes to the high notes of “Under a Glass Moon” and “Learning to Live”. The sustained vocals have been necessarily replaced with what sounds like screams as he struggles to reach that note. It’s undoubtedly frustrating for LaBrie and the rest of the band, and yet there have been moments since his injury where he almost sounds 100 percent better. For example, on 2006’s live album “Score”, his performance had me thinking “what vocal injury?”

The problem, then, simply seems to be that LaBrie isn’t consistent. If that means that the band needs to reevaluate the kinds of vocal lines they have him sing — he still shines on ballads in a lower register, such as “Far From Heaven” and “Beneath the Surface” from Turn of Events — or play more instrumentals during concerts, then that is the direction they need to head in in order to keep playing at the level expected of them.

While the band has updated its tour schedule to include Vienna, where I am currently living, I don’t foresee the need to see them again unless they shake up the first half of the setlist. Seeing Dream Theater live feels like no less than a marathon, but it’s a more enjoyable marathon when they are playing songs you like. Here’s to the future inevitable Images and Words celebration tour in 2042!

“The Dark Eternal Night”

“The Bigger Picture”

“Hell’s Kitchen”

“The Gift of Music”

“Our New World”

“Portrait of Tracy” (Jaco Pastorius cover) (John Myung solo)

“As I Am” (bridged with an excerpt of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”)

“Breaking All Illusions”

Act 2 (Images and Words):

“Pull Me Under”

“Another Day” (extended outro with a Jordan Rudess keyboard solo)

“Take the Time” (extended outro with a John Petrucci guitar solo)

“Surrounded”

“Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper” (with a drum solo by Mike Mangini)

“Under a Glass Moon”

“Wait for Sleep” (with extended keyboard intro)

“Learning to Live” (extended outro with a Jordan Rudess keyboard solo)

“A Change of Seasons”

Images and Words

• Edit source
• "Pull Me Under" Released: 29 August 1992
• "Metropolis—Part I: "The Miracle and the Sleeper"" Released: 1992
• "Take the Time" Released: 1993
• "Another Day" Released: 1 July 1993

Images and Words is the second album by Dream Theater , which was released on July 7, 1992. The album is somewhat known for being the band's breakout album, gaining them much mainstream attention. It is so far the only Dream Theater album to be certified Gold by the RIAA. It is also known for being the first Dream Theater album to feature James LaBrie on vocals.

• 1 Personnel
• 2 Tracklist
• 5 Reception
• 6 Tone and lyrics
• 7 Cover Art
• 9 Re-releases and alternate versions

Personnel [ ]

• Mike Portnoy - Drums
• John Petrucci - Guitar
• John Myung - Bass
• Kevin Moore - Keyboards
• James LaBrie - Vocals
• David Prater - Producer
• Jay Beckenstein - Saxophone

Tracklist [ ]

1. Pull Me Under (Moore) 8:14

2. Another Day (Petrucci) 4:23

3. Take the Time (Dream Theater) 8:21

4. Surrounded (Moore) 5:30

5. Metropolis—Part I: "The Miracle and the Sleeper" (Petrucci) 9:32

6. Under a Glass Moon (Petrucci) 7:03

7. Wait for Sleep (Moore) 2:31

8. Learning to Live (Myung) 11:30

Creation [ ]

Dream Theater wrote most of the material that would end up on Images and Words in the period following When Dream and Day Unite while auditioning for a vocalist, though the song Metropolis dates back to their days as Majesty and was often performed live with Charlie Dominici . A three song demo including Metropolis, Take The Time and To Live Forever was submitted to ATCO Records , which landed them a 7 album deal.

Creation of the album proved rough as the label forced them to keep it short, immediately denying them the use of the 16 minute A Change of Seasons . They were also forced to work with producer David Prater, who notoriously clashed with the band both personally and professionally. Prater infamously used triggered snare and bass drum sounds for Portnoy, leading the drums on the album to sound more like a drum machine, and produced the album in such a way that the heavier songs such as Pull Me Under and Under a Glass Moon did not sound heavy at all. Prater specifically clashed with Portnoy and Petrucci and for some years to come would remain a thorn in the band's side.

Interestingly, the band's most famous song, Pull Me Under, was a last minute addition, replacing the original lead-off track Don't Look Past Me . Also cut from the album was the ballad To Live Forever which ironically was on the demo that landed them the record deal.

The band also worked with an outside musician, Jay Beckenstein , owner of Bear Tracks studios, played saxophone on the song "Another Day"

Release [ ]

Compared to the release of When Dream and Day Unite, Images and Words received a great deal of fanfare and promotion, and was a moderate success on its immediate release. The band embarked on a world tour for the first time in their career, touring in North America, Europe and Asia. While touring, the radio single for Pull Me Under blew up on radio, causing album sales to spike and the band's popularity to grow. A single was released for Another Day and videos were shot for Pull Me Under, Another Day and Take The Time. All three songs had some degree of success, though Pull Me Under remains the band's most successful song.

Reception [ ]

Reception for the album was incredibly good, with many critics seeing it as a definite improvement on their debut, citing better sound quality, more mature writing, more variation and better vocals. Most fans at the time were hearing Dream Theater for the first time, as the first album had a low print run and almost no promotion, so Images and Words became "the first album" for many fans.

Images and Words is not without its detractors, however. Though many consider the album to be a classic, many fault the production, citing Prater's infamous triggered drums and a tone more apt for a band such as Marillion , as the heavier parts don't come across as such. Some also fault Pull Me Under as being a poor example of a Dream Theater song, going so far as to call it an average song that blew up in the mainstream, though many consider it a Dream Theater classic. The album usually ranks either very high or very low for fans, with very little in between.

Tone and lyrics [ ]

Images and Words is a somber, introspective album, with a sound not unlike that of Marillion and other progressive rock groups. Of the four tenets of Dream Theater's sound (Progressive, metal, melodic and pop) the album focuses mostly on the melodic, with ballads such as Surrounded, Another Day and Wait for Sleep. Pull Me Under and Under a Glass Moon focus more on the metal aspects, though the sound doesn't come through as heavy due to the production. Take The Time is a unique mixture of the progressive and pop sounds with Metropolis and Learning to Live being extremely progressive.

Like the first album, the lyrics do have a strong slant of fantastical or abstract themes, with only "Another Day" and "Take the Time" having a personal theme. Another Day was written by Petrucci about his father being diagnosed with cancer. His father's eventual death led to another song later on in their career, Take Away My Pain . Take The Time is about the band's own experiences, though it comes off as rather abstract. Learning To Live is said to be about AIDS, though the theme in it is also rather abstract. Other abstract themes are in Wait for Sleep, a piece of prose that gave the album its name from its lyrics. Pull Me Under has vaguely Shakespearean themes, Surrounded and Under a Glass Moon have spiritual themes. Metropolis has a historical theme, telling the story of Romulus and Remus, the brothers who founded Rome, though they are referred to in the song as "The Miracle" and "The Sleeper". Petrucci tacked the "Part One" onto the song as a joke, though it led fans to ask for a sequel, which eventually happened in the form of Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory . While there is no title track, the phrase "Images and Words" appears during the song "Wait for Sleep"

Cover Art [ ]

The cover art is a striking image of a young girl in sleeping clothes, standing before a four-poster bed in a rather fancy looking room. The Majesty Symbol can be seen on the bed's canopy. One striking part of the cover is The Sacred Heart which appears flaming and enclosed in barbed wire. This symbol appeared on several other Dream Theater covers, most notably Live at the Marquee and is considered by many to be the official symbol of Images and Words.

The girl on the cover also appeared in the video for Another Day. The fan club CD Taste the Memories , which commemorated the 10th anniversary of the album, had an updated version, with the girl being in her teens, though it is unknown if it was the same model.

The overall concept of the art is said to be taken from various lyrics within the album, such as Wait for Sleep. This was also a trick that was repeated for the band's next album, Awake , though in a less abstract and more literal sense.

To this day, Images and Words remains a mostly celebrated album. The songs on it are concert favorites, particularly Pull Me Under and Metropolis, the latter of which appeared on five live albums. As the album was the band's breakout, it was the first Dream Theater album many fans heard, and contains a lot of sentimental value for them.

The album went Gold in 1995, and is considered to be their most successful album, though more recent albums have charted higher than Images and Words, as this album debuted moderately and then later blew up due to a radio hit.

The album has been performed live in its entirety several times by the band in 2007 commemorating the 15th anniversary of its release. For its 25th anniversary, the album was again played in its entirety during the Images, Words and Beyond World Tour . For the album's 10th anniversary, a fan club CD, "Taste The Memories", was released with live footage from the band's 1993 tour.

Re-releases and alternate versions [ ]

Images and Words has never been officially re-released, though the aforementioned Taste the Memories was released as a tribute to the album, and it is possible that one of the 2007 performances may be released as an Official Bootleg . The band's first home video, Images and Words: Live in Tokyo contained all the songs from the album except for Metropolis and Learning to Live, as well as various footage from the tour to support the album, making of footage and the videos for Pull Me Under, Another Day and Take the Time. These three songs were also remixed by Kevin Shirley and re-released on the band's best of compilation Greatest Hit (...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs) .

"She shuts the doors and lights and lays her body on the bed where images and words are running deep. She has too much pride to pull the sheets above her head, so quietly she lays and waits for sleep."

• 1 Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory
• 2 The Twelve-Step Suite

Back to the future: the story of Dream Theater's Images And Words

Celebrating Dream Theater's Images And Words, Prog looks back with the band to see how far they’ve come since then, from producer spats to label woes and everything in between

The world was a very different place in 1992. Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains numbered among music’s most pre-eminent names, 65 innocents were murdered in the Manchester bombings and Bill Clinton had just collected the keys to the White House. Peter Gabriel, Yes and Genesis still flew the flag for sounds of substance, though despite a popular tour the writing was on the wall for the latter thanks to the previous year’s woeful We Can’t Dance . Meanwhile, over in heavier territory Metallica were still carving inroads to the mainstream via a self-titled black album that eventually shifted more than 15 million units in the States alone.

And as for the melding of the two styles which we now call progressive metal? For those with their finger on the pulse it bubbled away furiously beneath the surface but, to use a current common parlance, it wasn’t really a thing .

“That’s quite true,” agrees John Petrucci, guitarist of Dream Theater, the Grammy-nominated US/Canadian outfit that has since become a figurehead for the genre. “We were friends with Fates Warning and Watchtower, and Queensrÿche had become pretty big, but there wasn’t the scene that we know today. Everything was super, super underground.”

The record that would both ignite this nascent form of music and fan the flames of the career of its creators was a remarkable album entitled Images And Words . The story of its birth – which involved flaming rows with its producer, record company meddling and even, depending on who you believe, a possible Machiavellian plot to replace the band’s singer – is every bit as extraordinary.

For Dream Theater, who three years earlier had crashed and burned spectacularly with a critically acclaimed yet commercially overlooked debut album called When Dream And Day Unite , the dawning of the 1990s spelled the most challenging of times. Having dispensed with the services of frontman Charlie Dominici, Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keysman Kevin Moore and drummer Mike Portnoy fought to be released from their contract with MCA subsidiary Mechanic Records before auditioning around 200 potential replacements. This process was to prove exhaustive and at times soul-destroying.

“Some of those that tried out were out of their minds – as soon as you met them you knew it wouldn’t work out but [for the sake of politeness] you would have to play with them for a while,” remembers Petrucci, still not sure whether to laugh or cry. “There was one guy who called himself The Crazy Viking, and another who brought his whole family with him.”

It would take the singer-less, impoverished Dream Theater two years to find the right frontman, during which time they performed the occasional show as an instrumental four-piece and even hired a guy called Steve Stone, who lasted for a solitary concert.

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“It was tough to keep the dream alive,” Petrucci admits. “We were still very young guys and with Operation Desert Storm going on there were some worries that we might have got drafted [into the military]. After letting Charlie Dominici go, everyone went back to their day jobs, but the one thing we still did was practice regularly, for three or four days of every week.”

The missing piece of the jigsaw was James LaBrie, a member of the Canadian band Winter Rose whose CD found its way into Dream Theater’s clutches at a point when one might reasonably have expected them to be abandoning hope.

“By the time I met them, the guys were not in the least downhearted,” recalls LaBrie when asked about the scenario he found himself walking into. “There was great spirit and morale. They knew within themselves that they had something special. That inner confidence was the first thing that struck me about them.”

A 45-minute jam that included a cover of Journey’s Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ saw a relieved Dream Theater find their man. LaBrie recalls his new bandmates handing him very basic demos of three freshly written tunes ( Take The Time , Learning To Live and Metropolis ) that very quickly secured an eight-album deal with Atco Records, a part of the Atlantic family run by former Gentle Giant singer-turned-executive Derek Shulman. However, as rosy as things appeared, stormy waters lay ahead and Atco didn’t share the band’s enthusiasm for their newest member. Not only that, the label paired them with an ill-fitting producer who infuriated certain group members almost to the point of meltdown.

Ex-Santana drummer David Prater was an eccentric guy who had made records for soft rock acts such as Firehouse and Diving For Pearls. In 2006, looking back on the Images And Words sessions, an exasperated Portnoy told me: “Dealing with this asshole was tortuous.” Things almost became physical when Prater accused Moore of playing his keyboard parts wrongly on purpose to make him look stupid, wiping the tapes to start over again. Much of the animosity with Portnoy, believes LaBrie, was caused by Prater’s insistence upon using triggered drums.

“Kevin and Mike both had big issues with David, but he got along fabulously with the two Johns and myself,” clarifies LaBrie. Petrucci agrees: “Sure, he could be forceful in expressing his opinions. I recall having been proud of my guitar solo for Surrounded but he told me it sounded like a bad Van Halen solo, but Prater did an amazing job for us.”

Neither can confirm nor deny the rumour that Prater insisted upon getting completely naked and turning off all of the studio lights as he mixed the album’s epic opening track, Pull Me Under .

“I’ve heard that story and fortunately I wasn’t there to witness it,” LaBrie chuckles. “It’s a mental image that I could do without. But hey… whatever works for you, David.”

On the very first day of the recordings, Derek Oliver, the former journalist who signed DT to the label, visited the studio to say that Atco would not allow them to record one of the strongest tracks intended for the record. Inspired by the grief of his mother’s death, Portnoy had written the lyrics of the 22-minute, seven-part suite A Change Of Seasons , and he took the news badly, commenting: “It was a sour way to start the session.”

There’s an audible sigh as LaBrie laments the label’s misunderstanding of what Dream Theater were about. “Early on, they had told us what we were trying to do had ‘nothing to do with today’s music’,” he winces. “And of course that was the whole point! But you could almost hear them wondering how they hell they were going to make the record stick.”

However, as much as Portnoy, who slated Prater as “one of my least favourite human beings on the planet”, and Kevin Moore had butted heads with their producer, Portnoy would later acknowledge through gritted teeth that the saving of A Change Of Seasons for standalone EP status was “probably the right decision because had it been included it would’ve made the album 70 minutes long”. He even credited Prater for providing what he termed “a push towards the mainstream”, adding: “We were writing music that sounded like Metallica jamming with Yes or Rush, so somebody needed to [act as a mediator] or the album might’ve disappeared into oblivion.”

“Mike was completely right,” believes LaBrie. “Had we made the record that we’d really wanted to, it may have been a little too much for people to absorb.”

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It was quite a while afterwards that word began to emerge of a plot to oust James LaBrie in favour of Robert Mason, at the time a member of former Dokken guitarist George Lynch’s band Lynch Mob and now the frontman of hair metal survivors Warrant. Portnoy remains convinced that it did happen, remarking in that same 2006 interview: “The idea of replacing James was something we only found out years later. The management, the label; everyone was trying to dip their hands into the pie.”

A quarter century afterwards, LaBrie and Petrucci are not so certain. “I did wonder why I would not have been privy to that but believe it might be bullshit,” LaBrie now says. “In fact, the subject came up again quite recently when we started discussing Images And Words again,” he continues. “I asked John Petrucci point-blank, what about that guy… was his name Robert Mason? He told me we had already done a demo of the songs and were about to enter the studio. His words were, ‘If anyone had tried to force that upon us, there was no freakin’ way.’ Myself, I don’t doubt that Derek Oliver wanted to bring in another singer because he never really liked my voice, but it would never have gotten past the discussion stage.”

“I suppose it might be possible Mike knew something that the rest of the band did not,” Petrucci muses, sounding a little uncomfortable. “Beyond that, I can’t say.”

(Without warning, a band representative comes on the line and requests that “we move past any more Mike questions” – amazing considering Portnoy’s significant role at this point in the band’s history. Hmmm…)

Looking back, it’s difficult to overstate the David and Goliath scenario that awaited the release of Images And Words . Here was an album full of eight, nine and 11-minute pieces, delivered with painstakingly honed technique and an occasional sense of beauteous serenity that couldn’t have been more out of step with the simplicity and angst of the day.

While many of their contemporaries busied themselves with self-loathing and adolescent issues, Dream Theater sought an entirely different intellectual plane. Written by Kevin Moore, Pull Me Under referenced Shakespeare’s Hamlet , and Metropolis – Part 1 (The Miracle And The Sleeper) was based on a documentary Petrucci had seen on TV. Elsewhere, John Myung’s 11-minute piece Learning To Live tackled the topical issue of AIDS.

It’s also been suggested that with its lyric of ‘I’ve heard the promises/I’ve seen the mistakes’ and with the band being unwilling to ‘Waste another breath’ , Take The Time was a response to DT’s treatment by Atco, though LaBrie dispels such theories.

“Those words were written way before the label became involved with us,” he clarifies. “But there is some truth to what you say. The band wrote them because they were frustrated in their search for a singer and a label that would get behind them and understand their musical ambitions.”

Dream Theater’s initially frosty relationship with Atco, or more specifically its parent company Warner Music, would prove considerably longer-lasting than anybody suspected.

“Whether they moved us onto EastWest, EastWest America, Elektra or Atlantic, every time the option came up for renewal they picked it up,” Petrucci notes drily.

At first Atco pressed up a mere 8,000 copies of the album, though they started to realise the band’s potential when the eight-minute track Pull Me Under attracted radio play at college level and then national exposure. Reviews were hit and miss, though to be fair one critic correctly predicted that Images And Words would “do for prog rock what Nirvana have done for smelly cardigans”. Not long afterwards Iron Maiden offered the band some support slots on their tour for Fear Of The Dark and Dream Theater at last stated to enjoy some real traction.

“When we first began touring for Images And Words it really was just five guys in a van with a little bed bunk in the back,” LaBrie laughs at the memory. “All of us would take turns driving – it was pretty brutal. We knew that the album was going to stick out like a sore thumb and for it to take off we’d have to show some real tenacity. But if it wasn’t for Pull Me Under there’s a very strong chance that you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Dream Theater would go on to release a further 10 studio records whilst rising to the dizzy heights they now occupy – until scaling things back to large-sized theatres for their most recent bout of touring, the band had long since attained the status of Wembley Arena headliners – but Images And Words remains their most successful album. Neither James nor Jon will dispute the fans’ assessment that it’s still their magnum opus.

“We’ve made others that for me are on a par with Images… ” LaBrie contemplates. “Off the top of my head I’d cite Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes From A Memory [1999], Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence [2002] and even The Astonishing , but of course the continued love of my debut with the band is very rewarding. It’s great that even new bands are being told, ‘Check out Images And Words – that’s the one you’ve got to sink your teeth into.’”

Is it annoying that some fans still think it’s a record that Dream Theater will never surpass?

Petrucci: “In some ways sure, but you’ve got to look past that. I know from firsthand experience that discovering a band and falling in love with a record is a very special feeling. It’s something experienced by a fan of every band and not something to get hung up about.”

LaBrie believes that parallels can be drawn between IAW , which was launched into an unforgiving and downright alien musical landscape, and The Astonishing , last year’s “retro-futurist post-apocalyptic dystopia ruled by medieval style feudalism”, which offered more than two hours of music broken down into 34 different chapters spread across two acts (one per CD).

“Even 30 years into our history, with all of the albums we’ve sold and everything that people now know about the band, The Astonishing polarised our fans,” he admits. “They had never seen or heard anything like it before – much like Images And Words .”

In spite of Prater’s insistence upon mixing Images And Words away from the group and presenting the results as a fait accompli, Petrucci and LaBrie believe the album still holds up well. “I’ve some minor reservations,” admits John, “but mostly the album is awesome.”

Back in 2007, celebrating their 15th anniversary and with Jordan Rudess having replaced Moore, and of course before Portnoy handed the drum stool to Mike Mangini, DT played Images And Words in its entirety on a handful of occasions. The band are looking forward to revisiting it once again – even the now 53-year-old LaBrie, who in 1994 damaged his voice during a food poisoning incident in Cuba.

“ Images And Words is a great album to perform live – it has such a great flow,” he enthuses. “First time around, before rupturing my chords, it was nothing for me to sing its songs up there in the stratosphere. Luckily, I’ve healed over the years and I’m very confident of putting on an amazing performance. Those high parts on Another Day , Take The Time or Learning To Live all present challenges but I’m not intimidated about calling upon my upper range, put it that way.”

Almost exactly a year ago at the Palladium in London on the opening night of the world tour for The Astonishing , LaBrie knocked it out of the park with a powerhouse vocal display to silence any remaining doubters (and yes, there are still a few).

“Well, thanks for that,” La Brie responds gratefully. “It was an enormous challenge to represent seven different characters in the story, making those transitions within the blink of an eye, but after a few shows I felt myself doing it pretty naturally.”

All the same, The Astonishing really was an album for the hardcore, reflecting its spot of third place in ‘Disappointment Of The Year’ on the 2016 Prog readers’ poll. With hindsight was it a step too far?

“I don’t think so,” LaBrie disagrees. “ The Astonishing did very well for us around the world. But when you look at the bigger picture, sure… it was a hard sell.”

“It was a work on such a grand scale, we always knew that some people would be totally into it and others would hate it,” Petrucci agrees, “but the fact that we made a very different record and toured it the way we did made it hugely successful for me, and I thank our fans for that.”

Dream Theater are likely to be touring Images And Words for almost a calendar year, at which point they will begin formulating ideas for album number 14. It’s extremely unlikely, predicts LaBrie, that the band could consider entering the studio until “sometime in 2018”.

Right now all that John Petrucci can reveal for sure about its direction is that there will be no sequel to The Astonishing .

“It’s time for something completely new,” he concludes. “It’s always fun to play the older songs and everyone seems excited about hearing Images And Words again so in some ways this is a celebration and party tour, but by the time we get around to recording we’ll be hungry. My mind is already thinking about the next thing.”

This article originally appeared in issue 74 of Prog Magazine.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Can’t get enough of The Astonishing ? You’re in luck…

In the springtime, _The Astonishing_ assumes a new multi-media identity when noted sci-fi/fantasy writer Peter Orullian will extend its storyline into the form of a novel, which at first will be available in limited edition form (2,500 copies only) and bound in leather.At press time, John Petrucci had yet to read the text in its entirety, but there’s no doubt that the Seattle-based former musician author Orullian is an unashamed fanboy. On his website he proclaims: “The first thing you need to know is that Dream Theater is my favourite band. Ever.” In the same post, Orullian reveals that he has added “new characters, new motives, new technology” to the original story, “all in the over-arching plot, but also introducing new subplots and scenes”.

However, it was the revelation that the special edition will include “audio clips of song ideas not used on the album” that really caused Prog’s antenna to twitch.

“Jordan [Rudess] and I had so many sketches that we simply couldn’t use them all,” Petrucci explains. “We thought it would be an interesting thing to reveal a few of them as part of the limited edition, so you will get to hear seeds of song ideas and demos, all sorts of cool stuff.”

Dave Ling was a co-founder of Classic Rock magazine. His words have appeared in a variety of music publications, including RAW, Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Prog, Rock Candy, Fireworks and Sounds. Dave’s life was shaped in 1974 through the purchase of a copy of Sweet’s album ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’, along with early gig experiences from Status Quo, Rush, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Yes and Queen. As a lifelong season ticket holder of Crystal Palace FC, he is completely incapable of uttering the word ‘Br***ton’.

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Images and Words

Images and Words is the second studio album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater , released on July 7, 1992, through Atco Records. It is the first Dream Theater release to feature James LaBrie on vocals. Since its release, the album has maintained its position as the band's most commercially successful studio album, and the song "Pull Me Under" has the distinction of being the only Top 10 hit (radio or otherwise) the band has had to date. This particular song has also had more recent success as it has appeared in the 2008 video game Guitar Hero World Tour .

• 2 Reception
• 3 Accolades
• 4 Track listing
• 5 Personnel

History [ ]

After Charlie Dominici's departure from Dream Theater, the band auditioned nearly 200 individuals across the nation, until James LaBrie, who at that point was part of Canadian glam metal band Winter Rose, sent the band an audition tape. After a short jam session, he was named Dream Theater's new lead singer, and has remained with them ever since.

With LaBrie as the new vocalist, the band was signed to a seven-album contract by Atco Records, and shortly thereafter, they began recording their new album in late 1991. The album's production was marred with tensions, as the band clashed with producer David Prater, including incidents where Prater would lock the band out of the studio while infamously forcing drummer Mike Portnoy to use triggered snare and bass drum samples, with the snare sample being the exact one used on FireHouse's 1992 album Hold Your Fire , another album Prater produced around the same time.

The lead single, "Pull Me Under", gained the band considerable commercial success with its airplay on MTV and radio, garnering them a top 10 hit on Billboard' s Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. When the album was released, it sold at a steady pace, helped by an extensive world tour.

Dream Theater originally intended to release a double album, but that plan was rejected by ATCO, causing several songs to be omitted from the album. One of these songs, " A Change of Seasons ", would later be re-recorded by the band and released on an EP of the same name in 1995.

The song "Take the Time" includes samples from Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rappin'" ("Hold it now"), Frank Zappa's "Dancin' Fool" ("Wait a minute"), and Public Enemy's "Power to the People", ("Come on"). The song also features a quote from Giuseppe Tornatore's movie Cinema Paradiso: "Ora che ho perso la vista, ci vedo di più" ("Now that I have lost my sight, I see more"), sung and paraphrased by LaBrie shortly before in the song ("I can see much clearer now, I'm blind"). LaBrie had appeared as a guest vocalist on Fates Warning's 1991 album Parallels , for which the band was credited as "Dream Theatre" in the "special thanks" of the album's credits. Dream Theater responded by thanking "Fatez Warning" in the credits of Images and Words .

Images and Words was played in its entirety on several occasions during the European leg of the 2007 "Chaos in Motion" tour, in celebration of its 15th anniversary. On July 7, 2012, at a concert in Austin, Texas, the songs "Pull Me Under", "Another Day", and "Metropolis" were performed as an encore to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary; additionally, "Surrounded" was performed during the main set. In 2017, Dream Theater celebrated the 25th anniversary of the album on the "Images, Words & Beyond" tour in Europe, which started on January 30 at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica in Rome, Italy.

In a 2019 interview with Greg Prato in SongFacts, LaBrie listed Images and Words as the Dream Theater album he is most proud of, because "that established what Dream Theater really is. I think it's a phenomenal album from beginning to end."

The album was reissued in 2013 on vinyl as a limited edition 180 gr. double LP.

Reception [ ]

The album has received acclaim from music critics since its release. The German magazine Rock Hard elected Images and Words Album of the Month and lauded Dream Theater, using "the old [1970s] term 'supergroup'"; according to the reviewer, they set "standards and still perfect them, although they hardly appear to do so" and, even considering the many influences in their music, the "versatility, the linking of different grooves and melody elements within each songs" shows how Dream Theater are "style-transcending like no other band." In another contemporary review, Select gave the album a lower rating, referring to the album as "elaborate, layered prog-metal" and stated that "if this was a book, it'd be for the coffee-table, glossy but not essential." Phil Carter of AllMusic was taken by the band members' "impressive ability on their respective instruments" and by LaBrie's vocal range, writing also that the album is an "excellent mix of progressive metal stylings with heartfelt vocals and thought-provoking lyrics". Metal Storm reviewer calls Images and Words "a masterpiece and also a historical album", because it "brought something totally new to the scene, this famous progressive metal sound that would become Dream Theater's signature". Canadian journalist Martin Popoff in his Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal praised the band's musicianship and "the tricky arrangements", but was not thrilled by the album, which he found "a bit too self-aware and calculated to be in the true spirit of progressive rock."

Images and Words was a moderate commercial hit, reaching number 61 on the US Billboard 200 chart. It is also Dream Theater's only album to be certified gold by the RIAA, and remains their best-selling album to date, selling more than six hundred thousand copies.

Accolades [ ]

On April 9, 2013, Images and Words won Loudwire' s fan-voted March Metal Madness award for best metal album of all time.

The song "Under a Glass Moon" was awarded the 98th best guitar solo by an About.com guitar expert.

In October 2011, Images and Words was ranked number 7 on Guitar World magazine's top ten list of guitar albums of 1992.

In 2015, the album was ranked first on the website Prog Report's list of the top 50 progressive rock albums of 1990–2015. Four other Dream Theater albums made the list: Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (third), Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (14th), Awake (18th), and Train of Thought (38th).

In 2017, it was ranked 95th at Rolling Stone 's "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".

Track listing [ ]

All music is composed by Dream Theater, except "Wait for Sleep" by Kevin Moore.

• Pull Me Under
• Another Day
• Take the Time
• Metropolis—Part I: 'The Miracle and the Sleeper'
• Under a Glass Moon
• Wait for Sleep
• Learning to Live

Personnel [ ]

Dream Theater

• James LaBrie – lead vocals
• John Petrucci – guitars, backing vocals
• Kevin Moore – keyboards
• Mike Portnoy – drums, percussion, backing vocals on "Pull Me Under"
• John Myung – bass

Additional musicians

• Jay Beckenstein – soprano saxophone on "Another Day"
• David Prater – producer, mixing
• Doug Oberkircher – engineer, mixing
• Steve Regina – assistant engineer
• Ted Jensen – mastering at Sterling Sound, New York
• Larry Freemantle – art direction
• 1 Pelle "Dead" Ohlin
• 3 Valley of chrome

Images, Words & Beyond Tour 2017

IMAGES, WORDS & BEYOND TOUR 2017Photos by Darko Boehringer & Nidhal MarzoukIn 2017, Dream Theater celebrated the 25th anniversary of Images And Words on the “Images, Words & Beyond” tour, starting on January 30 at the Auditorium Parco Della Musica in Rome, Italy. The tour continued until the end of 2017. Photos by Darko Boehringer Photos by Nidhal Marzouk IMAGES, … Read More

The Astonishing Tour 2016

THE ASTONISHING TOUR 2016Photos by Darko Boehringer & Lucion MediaAs Dream Theater felt that their 2016 album The Astonishing would lend itself well to a live performance, they decided to play the album in full for each show on tour and hired a production company to help with their presentation. They also made it a point to book historical concert … Read More

30th Anniversary Tour 2015

30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR 2015Photos by Darko BoehringerDream Theater celebrated their 30th anniversary as a band in the summer of 2015 with a tour of Europe. Starting in June in Belarus and finishing in August in Finland, the tour’s setlist covered the breadth of the band’s discography, with at least 1 song performed from every studio album the band had released … Read More

Breaking The Fourth Wall Live 2014

BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL 2014Photo GalleryBreaking the Fourth Wall is a live album and video by Dream Theater, recorded live at the Boston Opera House on March 25, 2014 and released on September 29. The concert was filmed and directed by Pierre and François Lamoureux. It features the Berklee College of Music “World Strings” and “Concert Choir” on all songs … Read More

Along for the Ride Tour 2014

ALONG FOR THE RIDE TOUR 2014Photos by Darko BoehringerAlong for the Ride Tour was a worldwide tour in 2014 by Dream Theater, in support of their 13th self titled studio album. The tour began 15 January 2014 in Oporto, Portugal and concluded 30 October 2014 in Sydney. The tour had the particularity of keeping the same setlist for every leg, … Read More

A Dramatic Turn of Events Tour 2011

A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS TOUR 2011Photos by Darko BoehringerA Dramatic Tour of Events was a worldwide tour by Dream Theater, promoting their eleventh studio album of the same name. It was the band’s first tour with the new drummer Mike Mangini, who replaced Mike Portnoy after his sudden departure from the band in September 2010. The tour began July … Read More

Black Clouds & Silver Linings Tour 2009

BLACK CLOUDS & SILVER LININGS TOUR 2009Photos by Darko BoehringerSupporting the album of the same name, the Black Clouds & Silver Linings world tour included a European summer tour and following legs in Oceania, South America, North America (supporting Iron Maiden) and two final shows in Japan.

Chaos in Motion Tour 2007

CHAOS IN MOTION TOUR 2007Photos by Darko BoehringerChaos in Motion Tour was a worldwide tour by Dream Theater, promoting their ninth studio album, Systematic Chaos. The band performed at several festivals on the tour – Gods of Metal, Fields of Rock Festival, UK’s Download Festival, and the French festival Hellfest Open Air alongside Megadeth, Korn, Mastodon and Slayer.

Score Live at Radio City Music Hall

Octavarium Tour 2005

OCTAVARIUM TOUR 2002Photos by Darko BoehringerDream Theater began touring in support of Octavarium in Europe on June 10, 2005, beginning at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg. The main Octavarium world tour began in September in Finland, and saw the band continue with their “An Evening With Dream Theater” concert format. This meant the band would play for almost three … Read More

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