Neal Morse Concert

[Diff_Drummer]

Hi All. I had the pleasure of attending Neal Morse's concert in Denver on 10/9/12. Neal and the band played for about 3 hours with songs from his new CD "Momentum" including his latest 1/2 hour plus epic "World Without End".

They played suites from "Testimony 1" and "?", "The Conflict from "Sola Scriptura", "Author of Confusion" from "One" and "Fly High" from Lifeline. Neal did a short acoustic version of "Supernatural" while the lead guitarist changed a string.

The encores we a fun cover of the Osmond Brothers "Crazy Horses" from the Cover 2 Cover CD with Mike Portnoy singing lead out front and band member Eric Gillette on drums followed by "King Jesus".

As usual he had the incredible Mike Portnoy on drums and Randy George on bass. The new band members found during open auditions included Eric Gillette - guitar, keyboards, vocals - Bill Hubauer - keyboards, violin, sax, vocals - Adson Sodre' - lead guitar, vocals. The band was tight, amazing and you could tell they were all having a lot of fun. Mike Portnoy was sick, saying that he was "really under the weather", but that didn't slow down his playing at all. He still gave 120%, which is about 200% more than most drummers, including myself can do.

We had purchased VIP tickets which included a meet and greet. Everyone in the band was so friendly and nice. Mike feeling as crappy as he did could have skipped the meet and greet but didn't and chatted nicely with everyone. A real trooper. We then each got pictures taken by a professional photographer. You can see it attached. That's my wife Hillevi in the middle and yours truly peeking out over Portnoys cap.

Our son Zakk is a huge Mike Portnoy fan and his work with Avenged Sevenfold, Dream Theater and Adrenaline Mob. Zakk returned from Afghanistan last year with a Purple Heart after loosing 56 men in his company. He is living in Minnesota so couldn't join us for the concert. As a special treat, Mike sat down and let us video him doing a special "shout out" to Zakk, thanking him for his service. He had us double check that it came out OK and when he saw that it was cut a bit short offered to do it again. (This was already after midnight, after playing 3 hours and being sick.) So kind and generous. Zakk went nuts when we posted it on line.

All in all a fantastic evening. And yes, my wife Loves Prog!