828. Dream Theater / Official Bootleg: Covers Series: Master of Puppets. 2003. 4/5

When Dream Theater set up their Ytse Records site to release their own soundboard recordings of studio outtakes, instrumentals and rare live performances, I was looking forward to the material that would be available. The first release I went for was this one. Back in 2002, I had been able to get my hands on the bootleg recording of this gig, Master of Metallica, the review of which can be found at that link. This though was the band's soundboard recording of that performance, which I was interested in hearing.

This gives a different perspective of that night from the bootleg recording. While the audience bootleg has a full interpretation of the audience reaction on the night, this album barely has the audience in it at all, with only minimal noise being able to be picked up by the microphones being used to record the band. While that's fine, it does tend to detract from the atmosphere of the night and therefore the album. But that's just a small thing.
What this album does showcase is the musicianship of the band. This gives a clear indication of the part played by Jordan Rudess as the second 'guitarist' being played on his keyboards. As can be expected, in some places it comes across a little flat, but in some places, such as through "Orion" it melds in seamlessly with the song and sounds terrific. There is also often criticism of James LaBrie's vocals, but I still think he does a sterling job. No doubt John Petrucci is the star, while John Myung's bass work is great as always, especially on an album where Cliff Burton's bass was so prominent.

This is an excellent recording of a significant moment in the history of the band, and beyond. It was one of the first real moments where a band had played an album from start to finish in a live setting (though Dream Theater had done so with Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory, and even here it wasn't even their album). It was something that, from this moment on, happened quite a bit in the metal community over the next decade, and of course was not the last time that Dream Theater did so in tribute to their own influences.

Rating:  Slashing through the boundaries, lunacy has found me.  4/5