Grateful Dreams Remasters Series #71

Dream Theater
“A Nightmare After Halloween”
November 1 1997
Houes Of Blues - Chicago, IL
(GDT-R71)

GRADE : A

ANAMOLIES : None

COMMENTS :
This release is the latest Dream Theater effort by Chris Hughes. It is the Chicago show from 11/1/97 at the House of Blues. As MP points out during the encore, this is a special show because “last night was Halloween.” For this reason, the guys resurrect Nightmare Cinema for its United States debut and play Perfect Strangers.

This was already a high quality recording to begin with, but it had lots of problems. Fortunately, I was able to fix or minimize all of them. Keyboard harmonics were seen all the way up to 21,000Hz! The microphones were also good enough that they did not distort despite the loud volume. The taper must have been very well situated in the venue to get such a clear and balanced recording. The whole show was complete and no patches were necessary.

The first problem that was obvious was the numerous clicks and pops found throughout the show. These were big, nasty clicks that required manual removal. I would guess about 200 were found. Next, the tonality needed adjustment. The quality of the bass was great but the heavy sections drowned out everything else while at other times low-volume bass was lacking. I used a dynamic, frequency specific routine to compensate for both problems at the same time. Now, if you crank this show, it will rattle your windows quite nicely without blurring the guitar, keys, and drums… give it a try! I also had to smooth the midrange a bit.

At this point it became obvious that there was a guy (and woman) sitting on the left side of the taper who would scream from time to time. Cutting them down to size a pleasure. Other techniques were used to minimize the audience “contribution” in the middle of songs. Reduction of all this audience noise allowed the dynamics to be adjusted with ease. Finally, many additional track marks were added to have the recording correspond to the setlist on Lines In The Sand. I did add a track for the Nightmare Cinema introductions because I thought it was fitting. I must say, the Nightmare Cinema performance was very cool.

I hope after you hear this remastered version you will all agree that it is probably one of the best recordings of the 1997 tour!

Chris Hughes

BONUS CONTENT / FILLER : None

This page is best viewed in 800 x 600
© 2006 Rai "Weymolith" Beardsley. All rights reserved. Certain works are provided for promotional purposes only. Other copyrights and trademarks appearing on the service are the property of their respective owners. No portion of the any content published herein may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written consent of Rai Beardsley. "A Nightmare After Halloween " artwork copyright 2006 Raistlin Beardsley
This Space Intentionally Left Blank