Transatlantic 'The Final Flight: Live at L'Olympia' - 17 February 2023

Agreed. Personally I'll never be able to understand how somebody can try to rationalize in their heads the idea that it is anything other than one song.
By the same logic one could say We Are Need Some Light is actually 5 songs not one but the band didn't know what they were doing.

 

Have you heard Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness by Green Carnation?

 

Really? Because if I played the CD to 100 people who had never heard it, and showed them the back cover, all 100 of them would say it's a dozen different songs.

Your second sentence follows no 'logic' whatsoever.

No, I have not heard the Green Carnation song.

 

Agreed all-around.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, and The Whirlwind is awesome no matter if one considers it one song or 12.

 

Except that the same themes keep reappearing, sometimes very obvious, sometimes hidden, but they keep reappearing.

 

Something definitely happened, that's a fact. Neal mentioned it in his IC letter. I don't expect we'll ever find out exactly what happened, and between whom, but I have my suspicions.

 

Okay, but that happens with pretty much all of Neal's concept albums (solo or with his various bands). Does that make Snow a single song? One? Testimony? Are both Similitude and The Great Adventure one song each?

 

As its said above it doesn’t really matter what its called. As long as its good.

 

I am currently getting familiar with my first 5.1 rig. To my slight disappointment the 5.1 mix on the bluray of Transatlantic's Final Flight hardly used the rear speakers at all.
Between the songs there was some crowd noise coming from behind, but during the songs I had to stand up close to the speakers to hear that they are working. On the other hand, that could as well be the point, to stay close to the live concert situation. I haven't tried the 5.1 on the bluray of The Absolute Universe yet, maybe it will be more impressive.

But listening to the first album of King Crimson or Gentle Giant, for example, it's easy to hear that 5.1 opens up endless possibilities...

 

I went through all of The Absolute Universe BluRay portion of the concert film and it was a drag. The magic is gone, though the band seems like they'are enjoying themselves it all seems forced and tired. Transatlantic went from being original and creative around 25 years ago to being merely a production line of the same melodies, same arrangements, same vocal and instrumental hooks and it's all so bloody predictable. The last great thing they created was The Whirlwind which was absolutely stunning.
The whole discussion of dividing the epic into particular tracks index separately is obviously only done for the streaming platforms counters, more tracks - more money?
They do should put the band to bed once and for all but I'm afraid this whole "LAST TIME EVER" ******** is a marketing move so that they can come back one day with this huge spectacular reunion crap. Come on...

 

I like The Absolute Universe a lot, and feel it has some great individual songs, but it doesn't really hold together that well as a cohesive whole. The overture and last song feel like inferior version of the types of ways Neal Morse has started and ended his albums about 34 times already. And to your point about TA's creativity, there is no doubt that they still have great ideas, but the way they structure their albums got very formulaic on the last two albums. It's like they felt like they had to try and be as an epic as possible "because it's what we do." For a band that calls themselves progressive rock, they sure did box themselves into a narrow window pretty quickly. The good news is that Neal Morse and Roine Stolt, the two main writers, are never short on great ideas, but the freshness of the first three TA albums simply wasn't there on the last two. I was at Morsefest last year and the difference between the two nights was big. The Absolute Universe was cool to see on night 2, but seeing all of The Whirlwind night 1 was spellbinding.

 

Thanks for these thoughts. Do you think the impact of the passing time and TA's musicians age have big impact on their outcome and the level of performances?

 

No, I just think Neal and Mike, who are more or less the leaders of the band since they started it and seem to consider it more theirs than Roine and Pete, love a good formula and have taken the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. Mike did the same with the third LTE album, which all but felt like a blend of what LTE had done on their first two albums rather than trying something different. I suspect they feel that their full time bands are the ones to experiment a little and whatnot, and that the side projects are such a rarity that they stick to giving what the fans what they want, thus they stay in a box.

Think of it this way: if your full time band does a new album every year or two, an album that is different that maybe misses the mark is more forgivable for fans since a new one is coming again in a year or two. If your side project album misses, fans might not get another one for 5-10 years, and I think they don't want to take that chance in letting their fans down, so they go for the safe approach.

 

I get your point but aren't side projects the only projects Portnoy is involved with since leaving DT? I was a die hard Portnoy fan when I was younger but I have a problem with him since he left DT. I consider him a genius on drums but he's just so boring and predictable with his projects. Wonder why he wasn't able to form a steady new group jumping from one band to another never doing anything significant with any of those. Flying Colors was great on the first album and then predictble losing its originality and going into more prog rock (why?), LTE's 3 album? I love the first two but I couldn't even stand listening to the whole of the third album. Pointless wankery. The Winery Dogs? Sure nice formula for one album but repeating the same stuff for the second and third time? Boring as hell. Portnoy's seems to be lost without a vehicle for making truly magical music he once did with DT.

 

I still think the Absolute Universe 2 cd version is the best thing this band ever did.

 

He tried to get a full time thing going with Adrenaline Mob, but that band was a disaster, and he wisely jumped ship from that as soon as he could.

I think the problem for Mike is that he is not a songwriter in the truest sense, so he needs to latch on to those who are for a band or project to work well. YMMV, but from my perspective, he has never had a band/project worth a darn that didn't involve Neal Morse or John Petrucci, both of whom can do something Mike cannot, which is sit down and write songs all by themselves.

I do think Neal Morse Band has been mostly a full time band, though (four studio albums in seven years), but given the ages of four of the five guys in the band, I don't expect them to keep up the every other year thing when it comes to studio albums.

 

What exactly happen with Adrenaline Mob? I know Portnoy said he had left because of scheduling conflicts but that's not the real reason. Why was that project a disaster? Care to elaborate?

 

With all due respect to anyone reading this who feels otherwise, the songs weren't good. It sounded like meathead rock. "Mother bleeping Psychosane!" Really? It seemed like most who wanted to like the band because of some of the players involved just didn't due to how bad it was. Portnoy makes his own schedule, so I am sure had the band taken off, his scheduling conflicts magically wouldn't have happened, but I think he knew early on that it was a sinking ship, so he found the nearest boat he could find and paddled away.

 

DT has operated entirely on formula for many years now, with or without MP's involvement.

 

Back to The Final Flight: Outstanding! I too cried at the end. A long slog but it is what they do so well. I am sure they know what their audience wants in terms of material.

 

I love both The Absolute Universe and Final Flight. For me, The former is probably equal second with The Whirlwind among their studio albums, while the latter is just a whisker behind The Whirld Tour as regards the live CD/DVD/Blu rays.

Having said that, I'm very happy that they're calling it a day now while still at the top of their game.

 

I still see quite a bit of growth for the last releases of Liquid Tension Experiment Transatlantic and Flying Colors. (Especially live though the last Liquid Tension live album was 2008.) The most recent live albums of all three are my favorite live releases from each. (I'd throw the Whirlwind Live albums in there too.) For me, those have become definitive.

 

Nope, Ocean Cloud from Marbles is just under 18 mins. Grendel is 17:15.

 

Finally listening to this live album on Tidal …

I have to say I can’t have played “The Absolute Universe” more than 3 or 4 times, but immediately I started listening to this live version it just sounded “wrong”.

I wonder whether others who said the band sound tired and past it are hearing the same thing as me without realising it -

The key of the whole thing has been dropped … and to my ears not just by a half step, it sounds like more than that to me.

It’s a pet peeve of mine, but I get that other people don’t even notice it.