Neal Morse Band

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This is a test of our blog site where we hope to have updates of our family trip to New Zealand & Australia. We take off tomorrow and will likely start by getting a rental car at LAX and going to the beach for 3-4 hours to get some exercise in prior to sitting on the long flight to Auckland

The pictures above were taken after the Neal Morse Band show in Denver on May 25th. The band lead by Prog Rock genius Neal Morse who was backed by Randy George on the bass and the amazing Mike Portnoy on drums. They had an excellent father-son duet on guitar (the father also played violin & flute, the son played cello and sang some back-up as well), two other keyboard players, a saxophone player/percussionist and a guest vocalist for a couple of the tracks. The band played all of Testimony 2, Neal's second autobiographical release. They played for nearly 3 1/2 hours. Just a solid set. Set one featured tracks from disc 2 of Testimony 2, Testimony 1, One and Sola Scriptura. The second set was the 74 minute prog masterpiece Testimony 2. This was quite emotional in parts, particularly during "Jayda" which is an account of Neal's daughter who was born with a heart defect. The defect was miraculously cured which helped transform Neal's faith. Overture #4 and Timechanger really cooked.

We had bought the Meet & Greet VIP tickets, primarily to meet Mike Portnoy. MP is the founder of my second-favorite band, Dream Theater. He left them last fall and has since done two CD's with Neal Morse (the second one features Steve Morse as well and hasn't been released). MP has also done a more traditional metal offering with Russell Allen (Symphony X) and Mike Orlando. This is a fall release and MP told me that he hopes to tour with both projects. I took Geddy to see MP with Avenged Sevenfold last summer. MP filled in for Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan who passed away in December 2010 right before A7X was to record their latest album. MP was Sullivan's favorite drummer, so at the urging of Sullivan's family A7X asked MP to record the album for them. They later asked him to tour, which he agreed to do as he had a slight break in his schedule. This actually forced him to play with 3 different bands (Dream Theater, Transatlantic and A7X) in one week IN THREE DIFFERENT COUNTRIES! At any rate, MP is someone both Geddy & I greatly admire.

All three guys were really nice. MP donned a classic pose with Geddy! We both got drum heads signed...sweet!

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Photos

Neal Morse Band
Geddy & Jon with Neal Morse Band (Randy George, Neal Morse & Mike Portnoy)