Jason

So…Transatlantic was this weekend and if you’ve been watching my twitter feed at all, you’ll have noticed that the show was absolutely awesome. I just really don’t have the words to describe what a magical show it was and it’s going to be VERY, VERY hard to top. Such a special evening…

Just a small intro to Transatlantic. They’re a progressive rock super group made up of Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater on drums, Neal Morse (ex- Spock’s Beard) on keyboards and guitar, Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) on guitar and Pete Trewavas (Marillion) on bass. They play progressive rock music, influenced by the old school 70s prog rock days, along with a heaping spoonful of Beatles influence (all 4 guys are beatles fans). They were joined on stage by Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation) to fill out their sound. He did everything from percussion to guitar to keyboards to singing. Sometimes all at once.

I began the drive up at 8am, stopping to grab some breakfast at a McDonalds on the way and lunch along the Pennsylvania turnpike. On the drive down, I was baffled by some guy randomly honking his horn at me (confusion which would be cleared up later). I arrived at the hotel in Philadelphia around 1pm and hung out for a couple hours before heading out to locate parking.

The parking situation was the most anxiety causing part of the deal for me as the parking in the area of the Theater of Living Arts on South Street is…horrific. I ended up grabbing a spot at a lot on the end of South Street near the waterfront and walking 3-4 blocks down south street to get to the theater. I grabbed myself a Philly cheesesteak (of the chicken variety) and hopped in the already forming line.

Soon after I stopped in line, Pete Trewavas (the bass player for Transatlantic (and Marillion)) wandered out to take pictures of the line. I knew he was short, but man…I didn’t realize how short he was until he was standing right next to me. So that was really cool. That was the first indication I had though, that the showtime had changed from 8pm to 9pm (as I found out later, due to a ticket printing screwup that had some tickets listed as a 9pm start time). It was around 4:30 at this point and the doors would not open until 8.

To make the 3.5 hour wait bearable, I ended up striking up a conversation with two guys who were waiting in line in front of me. I never actually caught their names, but they were really nice and we were joking back and forth about stuff. It was a fun experience. So if you’re out there guys, thanks for letting me join in! We talked about the likelihood of the streets resident pigeons supplying us with an unexpected aerial present as well as random prog bands. They were from the DC area so we chatted about that as well. Eventually as the hours went on we ran out of topics and resorted to critiquing the parallel parking skills of drivers trying to get parking spots on South Street in front of the theater.

Finally, around 7:45ish the doors opened and we went into the theater. I headed up to the bar upstairs to briefly grab a seat and then, once the floor started filling up, I wandered down that way to get a good spot. I ended up about 7 rows back.

9:00 came and went and still no band. At 9:10 or so though, the house lights went out, the intro tape to The Whirlwind started playing, the band stepped out onto the stage and the show had begun.

And what a show it was. The Whirlwind is an aweesome track live. They played all 78 minutes of it, straight through with no stopping. I was blown away by the emotion that Neal Morse (on keyboards mostly but he also played guitar too) plays and sings with. Amazed with his voice that sounded just like it did on the albums, and amused by his goofy antics on stage. You can tell that he’s genuinely happy to be there, making live music on stage with his friends. That went for the rest of the bad as well. They were all smiles all night, and not fake smiles either. You could tell they wanted to be there and were having as much fun as the audience was.

After a near perfect rendition of the Whirlwind (Oh my god…the ending of The Whirlwind was so freaking powerful. Neal absolutely sold it), they took a 15 minute intermission. By this time I had move back closer to the rear of the theater because the sound where I was at was kinda iffy. But I had a great position with great sound for the rest of the set.

The intro music to All Of The Above started played and the crowd went wild. From here on out the crowd was singing along with every word. The atmosphere was totally amazing. The band having a blast, feeding off the crowd…the crowd so into it. It was like what all good live music should be, a communal experience being uniquely created right there in front of you. The best way I’ve been able to explain what it felt like was like the musical equivalent of a religious experience. I’ll never forget it.

After the 30 minute All Of The Above, Mike remarked that it’s already been over 2 hours and they’ve only played 2 songs which got a huge cheer from the audience. Then Roine and Neal did a special version of their shorter song We All Need Some Light where Roine took over lead vocals from Neal who did the song in studio. It was a very cool rendition.

And after that the opening to Duel With The Devil started playing and the crowd went wild again. The highlight of this song to me was the new Roine guitar solo in the quiet part in the middle. It was jaw droppingly amazing. So much emotiveness and improv packed into one solo spot. It needs to be recorded because it was just…perfect. After the end of that song they had the standard fake ending. At this point it was closing in on midnight.

After a quick break they came back on stage for a very powerful version of the ballad Bridge Across Forever with Neal and Roine again, Neal singing this time and Roine adding some very cool guitar harmonies to the song.

And immediately after that Mike started playing the iconic opening to Stranger In Your Soul on drums and we were off for the most amazing ride of the night. Stranger In Your Soul is another 30 minute song, but probably their best recorded work (in my opinion) And it didn’t disappoint one bit. The coolest part was, somewhere in the middle of the song Neal ran over to where Mike was on drums and actually took over the drumming for him. Pete headed over to Neals keyboards (with his bass still on) and started playing the keyboard part of the song. Daniel Gildenlow came over, reached around Pete and started playing the bass line. Meanwhile Mike took off and stage dived. After that was over Mike came back and seamlessly took over the drums again and they all rotated to their normal positions.

The ending of Stranger In Your Soul was no less amazing. When it was happening I realized something. That I had sung along so many times with Neal to this song and now I was actually doing it when he was singing it live. It was one of those moments at a concert where you remember “Wait a minute…these guys are actually making the music right here in front of me!”

The show was over with at 12:40ish and I headed out of the theater, down South Street (a walk I would never like to do again at 12:40am, by the way. It’s not a BAD area of town but it’s slightly scary that late at night….) to my car and headed back to hotel. I eventually managed to get to sleep around 2am, and woke up around 5:30-6 and decided I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, so I made preparations to leave.

After a quick stop at the Dublin Bakery in Willow Grove, PA for a buttercake, I wound my way home. Fairly uneventful drive. I got home, had a piece of butter cake and basically took a 2 hour nap to help clear my headache.

Sadly, it wasn’t all fun and games. Saturday, while driving there, I heard a sound like a small rock or something hit my windshield. Low and behold, a couple days later, I notice a crack forming, and me without full glass coverage on my insurance (a situation that has since been corrected). But it means yet another costly car repair. Sigh.

The show was still worth it.