DREAM THEATER: 'Score' DVD Certified Platinum!

DREAM THEATER's "Score" two-DVD set has been officially certified platinum by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). The set, which sold more than 14,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 1 on Billboard's Top Music Video chart, contains DREAM THEATER's entire "20th Anniversary World Tour" grand finale recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on April 1, 2006 (nearly three hours of music — over 90 minutes of which was performed with a full orchestra). The DVD also includes a one-hour documentary tracking the entire career of the band from the very beginnings at the Berklee College Of Music in 1985 all the way to the Radio City Music Hall grand finale. It also features rare, never-before-seen footage and interviews with current and previous members of the band, plus several live bonus tracks from through the years taken from the archives of drummer Mike Portnoy.

DREAM THEATER recently ended its longtime collaboration with Atco/EastWest Records/The Atlantic Group and is currently in talks with several labels about a possible new record deal. In addition, the group has entered a New York City studio with engineer Paul Northfield (RUSH, QUEENSRŸCHE, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, MARILYN MANSON) to begin recording its follow-up to 2005's "Octavarium", tentatively due next spring. "We've written about half the album at this point and have tracked the drums and the guitars for that much," Portnoy revealed during an appearance last Friday (Oct. 6) on the "Friday Night Rocks" radio show on New York's Q104.3 FM. "We're booked through January at this point; me and John [Petrucci] have a few breaks for G3 tours. Basically, we're looking to finish up January/February. Then it takes a couple of months for the label to set it up and get it out. So we're hoping by spring — April or May is what we're hoping for — and hitting the road by the summertime. That's the general schedule that we've penciled in.'

On the band's current label negotiations, Portnoy said, "We didn't wanna sit around waiting to close up the deal and deal with all the legal paperwork and all that, and have to wait until all that was done to start the record, so we booked the studio time — we wanted to start the record — so we started a month ago. But we've been meeting with lots of labels since we are here in New York [City recording], and I think we're probably days to weeks away from making a decision and making an announcement."

"We've done all of this pretty much on our own at this point. The labels thus far have… With the exception of our heyday 15 years ago, with 'Images and Words' and everything — other than that, we've pretty much just built this thing on our own, so it'll be amazing to see what we can do with a little bit of support."