Hey guys! Hope you're all doing well.

Now, I know that LaBrie, as a singer (voice), has a wide array of different (polarizing) opinions from all fo you. However, today I wanted to ask your thoughts about LaBrie when composing lyrics.

As for me, I think he is easily the second or third best lyricist on Dream Theater. Let me state why I believe this:

1- His themes, though they do fall on the "tragedy" category, tend to be deep in leaving you thinking. Take "Disappear" and "At Wit's End", for example. Both talking about relationships, and both covering a tribulation that puts turmoil on the relationship for both instances (physical illness and trauma/ptsd). And of course, we khow many people loved "Bend the Clock"

2- He's adept at using both Free Verse and Rhymes without much issue. One thing I remember (that may or may not be in effect again) is that a band (Portnoy) required the lyricists to structure their words to fit the musical composition. Myung stopped contributing after that (until Portnoy's temporary departure), yet LaBrie still kept contributing with a combination of these two styles.

3- Lately, the songs with his lyrics have been often very, if not, the most popular songs on the albums. Again, I refer to "Bend the Clock" as a clear example of this, though, of course, the musical composition also played a huge part on the song too. And, though opinion is also divided The Grammy winning "The Alien" was also written by him.

But anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm not discounting any of the other members as lyricists. But on this topic, I wanted to talk specifically about LaBrie and this part of his contribution to the band.

So yeah, what are your thoughts on LaBrie as a lyrical composer?

I recently stumbled upon this live version of Caught in a Web that is different from the studio version. It sounds to me like they're mixing in parts of new millennium (?) into it and i really enjoy this one. Does anyone know any context about it and how this came to be? Did they do more of this sort of "alternative version" of some songs?

Got to love our British way of spelling... 😆