In the presence of enemies (Part 1)

So here's the second of my "Desert Island discs" and it's probably a song, with which you won't be familiar, unless you happen to spend time either in my car, house or next to me when my phone rings as the beginning is my ringtone!

The song is by American "prog-metal" band Dream Theater (DT) and is the first track on their "Systematic Chaos" album released in 2007. In true prog style the song is 9 minutes long  and is also only the first part of the piece, the second part ends the album, similar to Pink Floyd's Shine on you Crazy Diamond on their "Wish you were here" album. When DT toured the album, they played the whole piece as one and there is a full version of it the subsequent live album "Chaos in motion". The live version is a true prog track as it weighs in at 26 minutes long!

Why do I love this song? Well the answer to that is June 13th 2009, which is the night that I saw DT play live in my home city, Southampton. DT were due to play the Download Festival the following weekend and so arranged two "warm up" gigs, one in Leeds and the other (for some unknown but very welcome reason) in The Guildhall in Southampton. My friend John, who lives in Jersey, and who is also a huge DT fan, arranged to fly over and his daughter (who was on the way home from Manchester University) and my sons made up the front row of the balcony that night.

DT started the show with this song and sat where we were, it was an amazing experience. The beginning is an instrumental workout and they gave it everything, it was one of those moments for me when everything just works. You can't really put it into words but the fact that Southampton Guildhall is a fairly small venue in which to see a full on rock show and that we had the perfect view of everything certainly played a part. It was the best start to a concert I can remember.

After the show, I revisited the album to discover that the version that I bought also had a 5.1 surround sound  copy of the album and I had never played that, as when purchased I had nothing to play it on. As I had updated my DVD player with a cheap surround sound system, guess what, I gave it a blast and the surround sound brings out all the true glory of what is going on! DT use lots of very modern technology in recording their albums and keyboard player, Jordan Rudess, in particular has lots going on which this song brings out. DT drummer, Mike Portnoy, is also a fantastic user of all of his kit and cymbals and again this track is a great example of his art.

I liked the song when it first came out, but the live and surround sound  experiences took it to a new place in my affection from which it has not strayed, hence it's inclusion.

I have updated the Spotify playlist that goes with these blogs so you can hear what I'm going on about here.

PLAY IT LOUD!

Landed

So I've reduced the 42 down to 8!

First up is "Landed", a comparatively "new" song from Ben Fold's 2005 album Songs for Silverman.

I had flirted with his music when he was in the Ben Folds Five (the joke being that there were only three of them).While, therefore, I had the odd track from magazine freebies, it wasn't until he appeared on "Friday night with Jonathan Ross" playing  a live version of this song that I sat up and paid attention. His appearance on the show was to promote the album and it worked as I went out and bought the "deluxe CD version" of the album, which contains the CD, and a "making of DVD" all beautifully bound in a 40 page booklet!

It's a song that firstly shows off  Folds piano playing skills. In that respect he's got the ability of Elton John, Jamie Cullum or Billy Joel, all great songwriters who are also fantastic musicians, which some times gets overlooked until you see them play live.

Folds is also a great lyricist, which can range from well thought out stories to love songs via angry break up songs to comedy, but they always either make you think, want to hug someone or laugh!. In this case it's a story of a man leaving a love, that has run it's course and more, to fly back "home" to an unnamed  past love (?) who may have written the writer off and asking to be picked up as he's "landed".

I've linked this blog to the Spotify play list which will eventually have all 8 songs on it. This version is the album version, which is also called the "new" version, it is piano, bass and drums. I can't find an old version, but there is a video version of the song on iTunes, which I also own, and that has strings on it and actually it's that version to which the Jonathan Ross version was closer! Doesn't matter both are great.

There is one final aspect to my love for this song that earns it's place in my final eight and that is that it is one of the first songs that I liked and both my sons liked when I played it to them. In fact, Matt my eldest son is probably a bigger fan now than me and went to see him live this February when he played in Southampton. I would have gone but he was treated by his girlfriend, she's a fan too, and there are sometimes you just have to understand that three's a crowd!

You can find the playlist on Spotify here

Choices

I plan to write a series(?) of blogs around the songs that I would choose, if I were on "Desert Island Discs and link it to a playlist on Spotify.

First task, reduce my initial list of songs down from 42 to 8!