Geoff Tate Brings Operation: Mindcrime To The Westcott Theater

After exiting Queensryche in 2012, vocalist Geoff Tate has kept busy by continuing to make new music and touring. On Thursday, March 3rd, Geoff brought his band Operation: Mindcrime to the Westcott Theater in Syracuse, NY for a headlining performance. As the only act of the night, Geoff and Operation: Mindcrime took the stage at the Westcott shortly after 8PM. The band kicked off the night with “Neue Regel”, a Queensryche song off of the Rage For Order album from 1986. With Rage For Order being out for 30 years now, it was appropriate for Geoff to play “Screaming In Digital” as the second song of the night. These two songs got the crowd right up out of their seats and up to the barrier in front of the stage. Geoff’s band seemed to get in the groove of things as the crowd showed their love for the music.

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Geoff Tate

Just after the two song intro, Geoff took time to address the crowd and express his gratitude. After the short break, the band got back into things with songs such as “I Am I” and “I Don’t Believe In Love”. The band’s choice of songs for the evening stretched over the entire Queensryche catalog it seemed. The die-hard fans knew all the material, while the casual fans knew all the words to songs like “I Don’t Believe In Love” and other hits but not songs from the lesser known albums such as Hear In The Now Frontier and American Soldier.

For the next portion of the show, Geoff and his band performed a few songs acoustically. The acoustic set consisted of songs, “Jet City Woman”, “Take Hold Of The Flame”, “Silent Lucidity” and “The Weight Of The World”. While hearing those songs in a different form was new and fresh for some people in the audience, others hoped to hear Geoff blast out the powerful notes of “Take Hold Of The Flame”. Unfortunately, Geoff seems to know his vocal limitations nowadays and simply does what he can. Changing the songs wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because the audience still sung along and seemed to really enjoy the show. The rest of the guys in Operation: Mindcrime stayed true to most of the Queensryche material by only making some minimal changes here and there.

Operation: Mindcrime Acoustic
Operation: Mindcrime Acoustic

Last year, Operation: Mindcrime released their first of a series of three albums. The first album is titled, The Key, and the band jammed through four songs off of it. The songs Geoff and the band chose to perform from The Key were excellent. The four of them consisted of, “Re-Inventing The Future”, “The Stranger”, “Burn”, and “The Fall”. It’s apparent that Geoff was going back to his roots on The Key with the progressive metal sound. For instance, “The Fall”, is a track that sounds like it could be right off of a Dream Theater album and the fans definitely enjoyed hearing this song live.

The evening ended with a bunch more Queensryche classics such as “Walk In The Shadows”, “Eyes Of A Stranger”, and “Empire”. Fans were left wanting more after the surprising “evening with” performance by Operation: Mindcrime. Overall, the band sounded great and Geoff’s interpretation on his old Queensryche tunes produced a great show that everyone in the audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy.

Since the band has two more albums scheduled within the next year or so, fans of Geoff Tate can look forward to him coming back to the area in the near future. To keep track of Geoff’s schedule and album progress,  fans can check his official Facebook Page and the official Operation: Mindcrime Facebook Page.

Setlist: Neue Regel, Screaming In Digital, I Am I, One More Time Around, I Don’t Believe In Love, SpOOL, At 30,000 Ft, Jet City Woman, Take Hold Of The Flame, Silent Lucidity, The Weight Of The World, Re-Inventing The Future, The Stranger, Burn, The Fall, Damaged, Walk In The Shadows, Eyes Of A Stranger, Breaking The Silence, Empire

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