Once in a LIVEtime is the second live album by American progressive metal band Dream Theater, released in 1998. It is 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, one of two designed by Storm Thorgerson for the band, shows an overhead view of the ancient Roman theatre in Orange, France set into a head of a monk. Like Falling into Infinity it does not feature the band's traditional logo due to Thorgerson's distaste in working with existing band logo designs. When Dream and Day Unite and Dream Theater are the only other albums without the classic font (although the font can be seen on the spine of Dream Theater).[3]
Track listing
All music is composed by Dream Theater, except where noted.
"Derek Sherinian Piano Solo" contains themes that would later be used in the track "Platt Opus" by Platypus (a progressive rock supergroup of 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.