The Images, Words and Beyond Tour was a worldwide tour by Dream Theater, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Images and Words. The tour began January 30, 2017 in Rome, Italy and concluded December 2, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. Unlike the previous tour, Dream Theater did not tour South America.
Each show was split into two acts, and an encore. The typical setlist for the show would look something like this:
Act I
- The Dark Eternal Night
- The Bigger Picture
- Hell's Kitchen (with an interlude of "Another Dimension" by Liquid Tension Experiment)
- The Gift Of Music
- John Myung Bass Solo (Jaco Pastorius' "Portrait of Tracy" cover)
- As I Am (with an excerpt of "Enter Sandman" by Metallica)
- Breaking All Illusions
Act II: Images and Words
- Pull Me Under
- Another Day
- Take the Time
- Surrounded
- Metropolis—Part I: "The Miracle and the Sleeper" (with Mike Mangini drum solo)
- Under a Glass Moon
- Wait for Sleep
- Learning to Live
Encore
- I. "The Crimson Sunrise"
- II. "Innocence"
- III. "Carpe Diem"
- IV. "The Darkest of Winters"
- V. "Another World"
- VI. "The Inevitable Summer"
- VII. "The Crimson Sunset"
Trivia
- The entire Images and Words segment and A Change of Seasons were tuned down a half step to put less strain on James Labrie's voice. (He's 54, and trying to sing songs he originally recorded 25 years ago.)
- The backing vocals for the whole show on the entire tour were entirely played back from recording, rather than John Petrucci singing them himself. For example, during Metropolis' second-to-last verse before the instrumental break ("Somewhere like a scene from memory..."), when the time came for background vocals to be sung, John would step up to his microphone as if he was going to sing, but the isolated vocals from the original track (tuned down a half step to fit the song) would come through the speakers instead, rather than John's actual voice. The band also did this for the whole Astonishing tour, and possibly even for the Along for the Ride Tour. It's possible this was done because LaBrie originally did all the vocal overdubs on Images and Words, but it is currently unknown why this was done, as Petrucci has shown in the past that he is more than capable of singing backing vocals and playing guitar at the same time, as well as being capable of using a falsetto voice to sing higher pitched backing vocals, such as the multi-part harmonies in As I Am and In the Name of God on the Live at Budokan DVD, and was even heard doing it for one line in The Shattered Fortress on Breaking the Fourth Wall.
- This is also considered to be one of Labrie's worst performances to date, garnering negative response from many of the fanbase and further aggravating Labrie's spotty reputation in live performances, with some fans (who were very fond of Labrie) suddenly renouncing him.