Once in a LIVEtime

Once in a LIVEtime
Cover art by Storm Thorgerson
Live album by Dream Theater
Released	October 27, 1998
Recorded	June 25, 1998 - Le Bataclan, Paris, France
Genre	Progressive metal, progressive rock
Length	154:09
Label	EastWest
Producer	Kevin Shirley
Dream Theater chronology
Falling into Infinity (1997) Once in a LIVEtime (1998) Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory (1999)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Once in a LIVEtime is a live double album by progressive metal band Dream Theater, released in 1998. It is their first full-length live album, and their second live release. It was produced and recorded by Kevin Shirley during the European leg of the Touring into Infinity world tour, at the Bataclan theater in Paris.

Jay Beckenstein of Spyro Gyra plays alto saxophone on "Take Away My Pain." Beckenstein had previously played on the song "Another Day" on the album Images and Words.

The album cover, designed by Storm Thorgerson, shows an overhead view of the ancient Roman theatre in Orange, France set into a head of a monk. It is one of the four Dream Theater albums (When Dream and Day Unite, Falling Into Infinity and Dream Theater are the others) not to feature the band's word mark on the cover, due to Thorgerson not wanting to use fonts created by others.

Track listing

All music composed by Dream Theater except where noted.

Covers and tributes

Throughout the album, parts of songs originally recorded by other artists are played by the band.

• The segue from "Just Let Me Breathe" into "Voices" features John Petrucci playing the first half of John Williams' "Force Theme" from Star Wars.
• The ending of "Take the Time" contains the solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" and the main riff Led Zeppelin's "Moby Dick."
• "Derek Sherinian Piano Solo" contains portions "Platt Opus" by Platypus (a progressive rock supergroup to which Sherinian and John Myung were members).
• Before the beginning of "Trial of Tears", and at the end of the song, Petrucci plays the famous five tone motif from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The opening of the same song contains portions of the Rush songs "Xanadu" and "The Trees" played by Mike Portnoy.
• "Peruvian Skies" contains portions of Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman".
• "John Petrucci Guitar Solo" contains portions of Liquid Tension Experiment's "Paradigm Shift" and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee."

Personnel

• James LaBrie - vocals
• John Myung - bass
• John Petrucci - guitars, backing vocals
• Mike Portnoy - drums, backing vocals
• Derek Sherinian - keyboards

Additional Personnel

• Jay Beckenstein - alto saxophone on "Take Away My Pain"

Chart performance

Billboard 200:

• Once in a LIVEtime - #157

Germany:

• Once in a LIVEtime - #59

References