Watch: DREAM THEATER Performs 'The Best Of Times' Live For First Time Ever

Progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER played the song "The Best Of Times" live for the first time ever Saturday night (March 22) at their tour-closing concert at Radio City Hall in New York City. Fan-filmed video of the performance can be seen below.

The lyrics for "The Best Of Times" were written by DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy as a tribute to his late father Howard Portnoy, who died on January 4, 2009 at the age of 68. The song originally appeared on the band's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" album, which came out in June 2009 via Roadrunner Records.

In a 2009 interview with the Metal Hammer podcast, Mike stated about "The Best Of Times": "This is a real heavy personal subject about my dad who passed away during the making of this album — he was battling cancer throughout the making of the record. I just wanted to write something that was a tribute to our life together. I didn't want to focus on something dark and depressing, I didn't want to focus on the last six months of his life before dying, I wanted to focus on our 41 years together before that. I played the song to him before he died and it meant the world to us to hear that before he died." He added, "I don't know if I'll be able to handle [performing] that [song] live just yet. It's still a hard song for me to listen to."

In 2021, on the 12th anniversary of his father's passing, Mike took to his social media to write: "As most of you probably know, I was making the 'Black Clouds & Silver Linings' album with DREAM THEATER throughout my dad's final months of battling cancer. I wrote the song 'The Best Of Times' for him before he passed away and was given the incredible gift of being able to share it with him before he passed. I remember vividly sitting at his bedside with him and playing him the song (my original demo with myself singing the song) and the two of us holding hands and crying while listening to the song. It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life, but something I'll be eternally grateful for. A lot of times people write songs for their loved ones after the fact. But it was a great gift to be able to do this before he passed away, and share it with him. The version of 'The Best Of Times' with me signing that I played for my dad at his bedside was played once again a few weeks later at his funeral where I shared the song with family and friends in attendance. (The song/album wasn't released yet.) The song was tribute to our life together. I didn't want to focus on the six months of his struggling with cancer and dying, I wanted to focus on the 41 years of great times that we had before that."

Mike rejoined DREAM THEATER in October 2023 after a 13-year absence.

DREAM THEATER kicked off the North American leg of its 40th-anniversary tour on February 7 at The Met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The trek was "An Evening With Dream Theater" and was the first tour of North America since Portnoy's return to the lineup, joining guitarist John Petrucci, singer James LaBrie, bassist John Myung and keyboardist Jordan Rudess.

DREAM THEATER's sixteenth studio album, "Parasomnia", came out on February 7, 2025 via InsideOut Music. The LP marks DREAM THEATER's first release with Portnoy since 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings".

"Parasomnia" was produced by Petrucci, engineered by James "Jimmy T" Meslin, and mixed by Andy Sneap. Hugh Syme returns once again to lend his creative vision to the cover art.

Portnoy co-founded DREAM THEATER in 1985 with Petrucci and Myung. Mike played on 10 DREAM THEATER albums over a 20-year period, from 1989's "When Dream And Day Unite" through 2009's "Black Clouds & Silver Linings", before exiting the group in 2010.

Mike Mangini joined DREAM THEATER in late 2010 through a widely publicized audition following the departure of Portnoy. Mangini beat out six other of the world's top drummers — Marco Minnemann, Virgil Donati, Aquiles Priester, Thomas Lang, Peter Wildoer and Derek Roddy — for the gig, a three-day process that was filmed for a documentary-style reality show called "The Spirit Carries On".