Dream Theater – Quarantieme, Live A Paris: Album Review

By Mike Ainscoe on 4th December 2025 • ( Leave a comment )

Dream Theater mark the return of MP to the fold with a all encompassing 40th anniversary live set.

Release Date: 28th November 2025

Label: Sony Music / Inside Out Music

Format: 3CD+Bluray(s) / Vinyl / Deluxe options….

ALORS! DT MAGNIFIQUE!

Quarantième: Live à Paris is the souvenir document of Dream Theater’s sold-out show from Paris, France recorded on their 40th Anniversary headline tour of Europe. A band who are no slouches when it comes to issuing a live release or two either current or from the archive, the collection contains a setlist that spans the band’s entire career from show recorded in front of a capacity crowd at the Adidas Arena.

Not a band to do things by halves, the physical release comes in multiple premium physical and digital formats, with vinyl, Bluray, 5.1 and Atmos options all available to the dedicated DT legions. Add that a rather nice cover where you can play ‘spot the album art’ references, the Hugh Syme style going hand in hand with DT releases.

HE’S BACK

Of course, the tour marked the return of Mike Portnoy to the drum stool and (we’ll guess) directing this particularly expansive DT setlist. On one hand it feels slightly unusual that the touring cycle passed over the new Parasomina album in favour of an anniversary celebration. They did get round to touring the new album in due course but ran out of steam with Europe not getting a return visit. Some European fans a bit aggrieved at what they saw as an arrogance of the band’s suggestion that they could always come across that pond to catch the tour… Watch this space…

Unlike the touring decisions, the anniversary set can’t really be faulted. The opening of the show – always a key issue appreciated by fans of any gig – gets the huge drama of Metropolis Pt.1. The curtain falling as the fanfare riff kicks in is possibly the biggest adrenaline rush of the set. Maybe alongside the opening minute of Under A Glass Moon and that fearsomely dense riff.

SET SELECTION HEADACHES

The Mangini period thankfully doesn’t get overlooked with This Is The Life and Barstool Warrior both fairly making the cut, but that’s it for the five album run sans Portnoy. Granted, there is a massive legacy from which to select and several albums aren’t represented. With a large majority of songs picking themselves,the first twenty years heavily outweigh the second twenty years. The mid set Orchestral Overture puts that to rights with a medley (doesn’t MP love a medley?) that includes themes from the library of work.

Often the target of fan criticism, James LaBrie copes admirably with the lengthy show, at his best where he sings rather than pushes into the higher registers and hollers. Musically, the instrumental quartet are, as much expected, on point and fire. The Portnoy/Rudess/Petrucci/Myung onslaught is both relentless and impressive. Petrucci gets a lengthy solo spot in Hollow Years where he shows he can not only shred but play with emotion (and yes we know about The Spirit Carries On) the interplay is particularly mindboggling in sections of Home and in the 25 minutes of Octavarium where watching the footage, they make the impossibly complex look like a stroll in the park.

MORE THAN ONE TRICK

A sense of reining things in comes via The Spirit Carries On and Hollow Years along with a couple of restrained orchestral passages modelling the huge contrast with some of the overblown Prog Metal passages that makes DT leaders in the field. Vacant too is lovely and shines the spotlight on LaBrie and Rudess, ging the chance for the other three to rest their hands, right at the other end of the spectrum, yet existing alongside the pulsating thrash that theyre capable of hammering out with something like As I Am.

Ultimately, a quality package that represents the care and precision; the flair, bombast and craftsmanship which typifies the phenomenon that is Dream Theater.

Here’s one of DT’s signature moves: