Fans' favorite

Suddenly everyone came out of their holes," says Matan Brill, one of the main activists in the Israeli fan club of the Dream Theater progressive metal band. "For years, we've been saying that this is a great band, with a large audience in Israel, but no one wanted to listen. Producers didn't want to bring the group to Israel, the newspapers didn't write a word about them - and don't even get me started on Israel Radio. But suddenly, when they realized how many people had bought tickets for the show, my telephone didn't stop ringing. Journalists wanting to know the story behind Dream, radio producers requesting material to do specials. A special on Dream Theater on Galgalatz [Israel Army Radio]. I'm sorry, that sounds like a joke to me. Now you suddenly remember?"

No one got excited about the item published a few months ago, saying that Dream Theater would come to give one performance in Israel, which will be held at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds today. The media's radar failed to register the news. But a few weeks later, when it transpired that due to huge demand, the performance could not be held in Hall 1 of the exhibition grounds and would have to be moved to a nearby, outdoor site, it became clear that this was an extraordinary phenomenon that required further inspection.

Hall 1 can hold 6,000 people. Morrissey performed there last summer. Chris Cornell will perform there tomorrow with crowd magnet Machina as the opening act. A long list of popular and famous musicians, from Ian Brown to Cypress Hill, were supposed to perform in Hall 1 in recent years but their shows were moved to another, smaller site, because ticket sales did not meet expectations. It's not so pleasant, and it's very unprofitable, to see a huge hall that is half empty.

And then - without any newspaper or radio exposure - Dream Theater, with its complicated and never-ending lyrics that can go on for 20 minutes, comes along. And, just like the other bands, it also has to be moved from Hall 1, but for the exact opposite reason - massive ticket sales. While the show's producers say more than 10,000 tickets have been sold, according to conversations with hard-core Dream Theater fans, "only" 8,000 tickets have been sold so far.

Regardless of what number is right, this is a dizzying success, a huge surprise, a good lesson about the gap between exposure and popularity and also a commendation for the band's fans - both passive (the thousands who will attend the performance) and active (a few serious fans who are largely responsible for the very fact that the performance will be held here).

"Even if it was not us who made this performance happen, it could not have happened without us," says Brill. Despite the years of refusal on the part of Israeli producers, Dream Theater fans did not despair. They told every producer who would listen, and even those who wouldn't, that the band had a huge audience in Israel. Finally the Hadran company was convinced. In tandem with pressuring producers, Dream Theater's Israeli lobby also tried to win over the band members themselves. Every time the band gave a tour, a respectable delegation of Israeli fans attended the concerts. For one performance in Turkey, almost an entire planeload of Israeli fans flew over. "The band members understood that they have a serious following here," says Tal Ofer, who heads the band's fan club in Israel. "They simply could not afford not to come here."

Metal with a virtuosic twist

"As a band, Dream shouldn't be taken lightly," says Nir Salgi, 32, who works in high tech and has traveled abroad 10 times so far to see the group. "Either it becomes your world, or it's not your thing. There's no middle ground."

What is it about Dream Theater's music that changed his world? "I like heavy music, music with flesh," Salgi says. "And heavy music is usually metal. But I don't like over-simplified music. Dream provides the perfect combination for me, it's both heavy and sophisticated. You can hear a song 50 times and still find something new in it."

Dream Theater, which began appearing in the mid-1980s, did not invent the genre known as "prog metal," a combination of progressive rock and metal. Bands like Deep Purple and Rush preceded it.

But Dream Theater upgraded the genre and added a virtuosic dimension to it. The trinity of progressive rock, metal and virtuosic performance may explain the band's absence in the media sphere - the radio does not deal with complex music, certainly not long and complex, and most music critics are apathetic to metal, dislike progressive rock and are deeply suspicious toward virtuosos.

But, as is often the case, the audience is far from impressed with the taste of those who dictate taste.

"One of the reasons why so many people want to see Dream is that the band interests several different kinds of audiences - both the audience of metal, and the audience of progressive, as well as jazz-lovers," Brill says.

Salgi points to another important reason. "The members of the Dream band are such good musicians that any guitarist, even if he doesn't like the band, would like to see John Petrucci, and every drummer, even if he doesn't like the band, would like to see Mike Portnoy."

Salgi is right. And he is not just talking about professional guitar players and drummers, but amateurs, too. When the importers of shows engage in segmentation, trying to estimate the potential market for this or that band, it is unlikely that they devote a special rubric to professional and amateur musicians.

But that is a large and enthusiastic audience group. About half a year ago, when bassists Stanley Clarke, Victor Wooten and Marcus Miller appeared at Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium, an audience numbering some 2,500 - many of them bass players themselves - crowded into the hall. They came to see the performance of three bass "monsters." And the same will be true of Dream Theater's monsters on the guitar, the drums and the bass.

Dream Theater also arouses quite a bit of antagonism. "I have a friend who, every time he hears the name Dream Theater, takes out his pocket computer and starts working on it," says one of the band's fans, Reuven Fugatsh, 27, who is studying for a Master's degree in psychology.

The message is clear. The band's members are sometimes accused of being superb technicians who lack soul and feeling. "People have a conditioned reflex - when they think something is sophisticated they believe it has no soul," Fugatsh says.

"When I heard Dream for the first time, the music not only lifted my feelings but also my enjoyment of complex music. And I'm prepared to argue with anyone who thinks John Petrucci is a guitarist lacking feeling. There are moments when he knows how to touch the neck of the guitar in the right places and to squeeze out the sounds in such a way that the music reflects my feelings."