MIKE PORTNOY Recounts Bizarre 9/11 Coincidence

September 7, 2011

As we approach the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, drummer Mike Portnoy (ADRENALINE MOB, DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD) shared with AOL's Noisecreep his recollections of the day.

He said, "I remember waking up Tuesday, September 11, 2001 to my wife telling me to put on the TV because I wasn't going to be going into [New York City] as planned.

"DREAM THEATER was working in New York City at the time mixing our album 'Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence' and I would've been driving in that afternoon for our session. But as the events of the morning unfolded, I found myself glued to the TV in disbelief as to what I was witnessing. It was all too surreal. I felt like I was watching a Will Smith Hollywood film. It couldn't possibly be really happening.

"When I finally did return to work in New York City a few days later, it was just as surreal as there was a sadness and almost deafening silence still lingering throughout the streets of Manhattan.

"On a personal side note, one of the strangest coincidences of my career was that DREAM THEATER's 'Live Scenes From New York' was released on Tuesday, September 11th 2001, the cover artwork of which illustrated a big apple (representing New York City) with the World Trade Center in flames! [see image below]"

Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Among the 2,753 victims who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center were 343 firefighters and 60 police officers from New York City and the Port Authority, and 8 private emergency medical technicians and paramedics. Another 184 people were killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

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