Symphony X – Wembley Arena 2007

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After spending the summer hitting a few of the major European festivals in support of new album Paradise Lost, followed by a short US headlining tour, Symphony X were selected by genre kings Dream Theater to support them on the European leg of their Chaos In Motion Tour, themselves promoting new album Systematic Chaos.

With a door time of 18:00 pretty much everyone there early enough for Symphony X seemed to expect the band on at 19:00. Unfortunately they didn’t come on until 19:30, and only played for about 35-minutes. Many fans had been in the venue for an hour and a half by this point, having made their decisions on the acceptability of the £22 price-tags on t-shirts and Dream Theater’s horrific overpricing of their official bootleg CDs and DVDs, and bringing the band on half an hour earlier, giving them a full hour’s slot would surely have benefited everyone involved. Giving them just 35-minutes when there was time comfortably available to give them longer seems ridiculous.

Symphony X made the most of it though. Their performance was at a much higher energy level than earlier in the year at the Sweden Rock Festival, and the very large crowd (one benefit of starting so late, a lot of people had arrived by that point) were very keen, clearly comprising a lot of Symphony X fans who, with no headlining tour in Europe, had only this chance to see the band.

The bulk of the set came from the new album, opening with the first four cuts before playing any older material. On some dates of this tour they’ve played three from Paradise Lost, dropping the softer title track, and played their 20+ minute epic The Odyssey. This time they chose the shorter songs option, packing in Paradise Lost plus three older songs (they normally manage only two). The aggressive nature of the new album transfers very well to the live setting and some of the high-end keyboards and Malmsteen-solos that have put people off before are less prominent on this material, giving it a wider appeal.

Although unknown to the crowd at the time, Dream Theater had a very instrumental-heavy set in store this night, so the punchier Symphony X performance was looked back on at the end of evening with high regard by many who would have rathered the headliners played a similarly varied set. Judging by the hordes of fans in attendance, and the countless more converted by this, and several other, strong performances on this tour, Symphony X will be able to headline a more modestly sized set of venues themselves soon.

“ aggressive ”

Setlist: Set The World On Fire (Lie of Lies) / Domination / Serpent’s Kiss / Paradise Lost / Inferno (Unleash The Fire) / Sea of Lies / Of Sins And Shadows

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Progressive, Symphony X