John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess - "An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess" Review

Artist/ Band: John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess
Title: An Evening With John Petrucci & Jordan Rudess
Label: Flavored Nations
Year of Release: 2004

official Flavored Nations website

(click on the link above, for ALL band information on this and the band's other cds)

The Review:

One night in autumn of 2000, guitartist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess (both of Dream Theater) performed as a duo for the first time at the intimate Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center in Nyack, New York now known as the Helen Hayes Theatre Company. They wrote nine compositions for the concert during a Dream Theater tour in the weeks before, but none were finished. Nevertheless, the duo had the confidence to record the performance and this cd is a document to that very special night. It was first released in 2000 and now re-issued again in 2004. The music on this disc is nothing like what these two musicians have done in both Dream Theater and Liquid Tension Experiment. Actually this duo is sort of an extention of LTE but in a more acoustic format.

In this cd, both John & Jordan show that they have a musical chemistry more evident than in Dream Theater. To me Jordan needs to be more in the forefront of Dream Theater’s music but that’s another story. Back to this cd, according to the website, when Steve Vai recently heard the album for the first time, he knew within seconds he wanted his Favored Nations label to properly release it. So where or not you’re a Dream Theater or LTE fan, give this CD a chance and it will change your mind about the musicianship John & Jordan have applied here. Also you’ll hear how well John plays without all that “noise” and how well both he and Jordan compliment each other. I hope there’s more of this in the works because it’s one of the most enjoyable and exciting side projects (aside from Frameshift) of Dream Theater to date..

Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on May 23rd, 2004

Tracks:

1. Furina Taurina

2. Truth

3. Fefe And Drum

4. State of Grace

5. Hang 11

6. From Within

7. The Rena Song

8. In the Moment

9. Black Ice

10. Bite of the Mosquito (Studio version)