i remember a dream

Old content migrated from a very long time ago…

i remember the dream i was in when i woke this morning, but only vaguely now (as it is a number of hours since i awoke).

i remember it had something to do with lessons at school. the school was something like a cross between my primary and secondary schools, especially in the way the classrooms looked inside. i remember that the school suddenly had an outing elsewhere, like a geography field trip (although it wasn’t a geography lesson that i was in, or returned to after the trip).

the trip was to somewhere that could have been wales - fairly hilly and/or mountainous. we were walking in what was basically a long line from left to right (that is to say, i perceived it as left to right because whenever my point of view was not my own, it was looking at the group such that it appeared the group was moving from the left to the right). there was some form of path at times, but whenever there wasn’t it still felt as though there was a path to walk on (not spongy, soggy grass).

the walk reminded me (in the dream, so possibly i was slightly lucid at the time) of the walk i went on with liz and blade at the end of summer 1999. the difference was the size of the group - about twenty-five or thirty at a guess. no teachers though, i think.

what happens in the transition between that scene and arriving back in the school somehow, i’m not sure. perhaps i was daydreaming within my dream of being at school.

what happens to get from school to the sea, i’m also unsure, given that all of a sudden, i’m watching something that’s happening underwater. there’s a long conic shaped shell, which looked about 5 or 6 feet long, maybe 8-10 inches wide at the “base”. i vaguely remembered seeing one of these in a book about prehistoric animals, but couldn’t remember the name of it. so i decided to either redefine “conch” to what this thing was, or redefine this thing to “conch”, while at the same time knowing that “conch” wasn’t quite the right word for it. never mind what i called it. i then (lucidly) transformed it into a lobster (about 6 feet long) which vaguely had a humanoid face.

then i woke up. (i feel suddenly reminded of bits of the sandman - a game of you in particular… “then she woke up”…)

[[[snip]]]

what to wear at the concert? after all, if i was to wear the gothy sorts of clothes that i’d wear to q-club in cambridge, he’d pull all sorts of horrible faces and make noises. i think he’s /just a little/ homophobic, and somehow believes that a black crushed velvet shirt with chiffon cuffs is “gay” or something. grumble.

tomorrow’s concert, however, i’m not bound to “pleasing” people - the squirrel and i shall travel to london, meet blade and have a good time, wearing whatever we damned well like (i’ve been informed that i am to help blade into her newly purchased corset - which involves muchly pulling on strings, and lotsly energy from me). i myself will probably travel down in the “kittie costume” as it seems to be now known (the “i ate my mouse” costume). i might put up a photo somewhere linked within the diary.

[[[snip]]]

i’ve got to use up 34 shots on my camera too, before i can put in the stupidly high-speed black and white film in it. trip to town to snap is called for. also to pick up tickets from the vegetative state machine, and buy the train tickets for the squirrel and myself.

what do i do with 64k? still thinking. discuss on train tomorrow.

for now, shower and get dressed. then head into town and come back. pack. go to concert.

[[[snip]]]

the concert was amazing. the support band, spock’s beard were far from the typical “oh it’s just a support band” and held the audience captive (far from the shouts of “ahhhh just fuck off and let the proper band on!” we expected). in fact, i was very impressed with how coordinated they were. the surprise part of their show was when someone resembling marilyn manson (or a member of the band, kiss) came on stage with a pair of drumsticks and sat at the kit, urging the crowd to clap along in time. they then started playing the drums. within a couple of beats, the vegetative state machine and myself knew who it was. mike portnoy revealed himself at the end of the track to a huge cheer from the crowd.

dream theater came on after a half-hour set change. the gig started with the beginning of regression, huge cheers as petrucci started playing the guitar introduction to it (actually, i can leave out the “huge cheers” from now, given they pretty much didn’t stop throughout the 2 hour show!). they played through scenes from a memory with barely a break (admittedly they had little breaks, for john to change guitars, for jordan to change patches on the piano and for mike and james to drink a lot of water).

the lighting was superb - far exceeding the lights at the touring into infinity gigs. they were coordinated to the music, highlighting the members of the band at appropriate points in the music. the supporting background video was a truly wonderful idea (huge pat on the back to whoever thought of that).

bits of the concert that particularly stand out for me:

- spock’s beard’s vocal harmony piece, with the surprise portnoy on drums.
- the beginning of the overture, the sudden smack of energy from the whole band starting all at once.
- petrucci’s 6 4x12” mesa boogie cabs.
- the microphones in front of the mesa boogie cabs (like you honestly need to mike up that much amplification - but they did anyway!).
- fatal tragedy - the piece coupled with the moody lighting had just the right atmosphere.
- petrucci’s solo intro for through her eyes. it was beautiful.
- jordan is available for parties and weddings.
- the spirit carries on. wow.
- finally free - portnoy is crazy. was the rest of metropolis 2 just a warm-up?

after metropolis part two, they played (in no particular order):

- the mirror
- lie (?)
- a crimson sunrise + innocence
- new millenium
- burning my soul (?)
- just let me breathe
- status seeker (?)
- take the time
- a fortune in lines
- under a glass moon
- pull me under
- acid rain
- caught in a web
- voices (?)

bits of that i’m not sure about, because i’m writing this about 72 hours after the concert, and have brief scribbly notes to go from.

i hope dream theater enjoyed the concert as much as we, the sell-out audience, did.