Dream Theater - Live at Budokan
A treasure-trove for Dream Theater fans,Live at Budokanpresents  an entire three-hour performance at Tokyo's famed Budokan arena on April  26, 2004, along with a bonus disc rich in supplementary material. Disc 1  finds the metallic progressive-rock quintet at its awe-inspiring best,  plowing through its catalog of dramatic epics and jack-hammer  instrumentals, including five of the seven songs from 2003'sTrain of  Thought. Disc 2 features an extended drum solo from  percussionist extraordinaire Mike Portnoy; gear tours from guitarist  John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess (fascinating for lay people  and downright revelatory for musicians); and a half-hour documentary on  DT's 2004 stint in Japan punctuated by tantalizing snippets of band  rehearsals. The shooting and editing for the concert are a music lover's  dream, with lengthy shots that linger on the performances of individual  band members. Disc 2 takes this even further with a multi-angle sequence  of the 12-minute "Instrumedley."Production values are extremely high: it's a widescreen presentation  shot on high-def video and nicely mixed for multichannel Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (with a thinner, collapsed version of the same for Dolby  2.0). It must be noted, however, that the center, subwoofer, and surround channels get jumbled right at 1:35:30 on disc 1. The front left/right channels remain in place, but the signals for the other four speakers playnon-musical chairs. People listening in 2.0 will experience a brief dropout at that point.--Michael Mikesell