`Duel With The Devil` opened up the show and after a few sound adjustments Transatlantic took off to a high level of making music and having fun at the same time. With Morse and Portnoy on the left and right side of the stage on a little higher stage it was great fun to see how they interact with each other, pulling faces at each other and stuff like that.

It was remarkable that Portnoy`s sound was kept in service to the band, in Dream Theater he often is the focal audio point but although he was very much present at the front right side his drumming was never to loud, maybe this has something to do that he had a total other drumkit this time.

No one really stood out soundwise so there was a great homogenic sound. The applause after `Duel With The Devil` seemed to go on and on and maybe this already was an omen for the things to come later on.

`My New World` featured Roine Stolt on vocals and it was here that there was a little flaw, he had a little trouble with his voice but recovered quickly luckily enough. But his guitarplaying made up for it, he is one of the last guys on earth who can play a solo with great feeling.

His stage presence is something else though, Theo Thijssen, my REZ collegue called him The Iceberg...and it`s maybe true, Stolt is the only one who keeps straight face all the time and rarely cracks a smile. Oh well, a band with Morse and Portnoy in the line up has enough jokers.

The person that surprised me the most was Marillion`s Pete Trewavas...what a great and professional musician! His experience and fanatism was very well noticable, especially when his immense bass sound wasn`t the way he wanted it. He ran, playing and all, to the monitor guy without missing a note. During the show he was jumping, singing, keeping an eye at young Daniel (who was doing a great job by the way), and when Mike Portnoy said that the show would feature "fuckin` epics" only,

Neal Morse, who wore a shirt for New York (it was either a Knicks or Yankees shirt) dedicated `We All Need Some Light` to the people of that city and received a nice applause for doing that, was in excellent vocal shape and so were all the other guys, yes, even Mike Portnoy, maybe James LaBrie gave him a few singing lessons? Pete Trewavas was also singing very well, he has a very characteristic voice and his english accent is quite funny when he spoke in between the songs compared to the Yanks Portnoy an Morse.

The other songs that were featured in the set were `Suite Charlotte Pike` which was tranformed to `Mike`s Medley` because it featured a selection of songs from `Abbey Road` (the legendary album by The Beatles), Stranger In Your Soul` and the encore was `All Of The Above` from the `SMPTe` debut.

The applause and cheers after that very impressive and wonderful song literally stayed on for minutes and minutes....The hall music was started and the hall lights were on but the crowd kept on shouting, singing, clapping, everything to persuade the band for an extra encore.

Just when I thought that it wasn`t going to happen anymore Neal Morse climbed his riser again and told us that they would one one more without rehearsing it and that would do it along the way. Chills down everybodies spines when Pink Floyd`s `Shine On You Crazy Diamond` was recognized!!

It had been a while since I heard an audience sing along this loud, let me tell you...amazing. The end of the song was a bit messy but Portnoy called it in and then it was over, more than 2½ hours of pure magic. Portnoy really really hoped to return and I guess there wasn`t anybody who wasn`t sharing that wish. Transatlantic will be back, they simply have to...hear me? They HAVE to...

There will be a chance to relive this show again because the entire show was filmed and recorded for a future DVD release, and then you will see that I was right, no doubt about it.

(Review: Winston Arntz
Pics: Frank Alders)