I...have a dream.

[brent]

Had a dream that John, Bob, Louie, Lohn Lawry (didn't see a bass player) were rehearsing and recording new intros for the concerts, to replace the aged and abbreviated ones from NOTW. John brought me a CD player that was running low on batteries. I hit play and they stood and watched my reaction. I woke up humming what I had heard. Think I will go record it today.

[petraman]

Sounds like the Dream Team to me so the bass player has to be Ronny.

[Jan]

Dreamin' about the Dream Team!! Very cool. Hope it comes true. If not, at least we could get a new PDC song out of it, if you can remember enough of it - also cool.

[Jonathan]

Why do I get the feeling there is more to this?

[Yuri]

Nope, ain't gonna happen, without a bass player. Any thought of any type of reunion is foiled.

[brent]

This was just a dream I had. If it matters the guys were about 20 years younger too. The music was cool though. I did not get a chance to record it. I will. I wrote it all down.

[St_Augustines_Pears]

This was just a dream I had.

Freud said, "Every dream is a wish.".

[brent]

Ha...you know, that crack smokin old man might have been on to something. Dreams also represent unfinished business.

[curt]

Well, Brent, your dream has almost come true. Three of those four guys are already playing together, but I still see the difference.

The Dream Team (Schlitt, Hartmann, Louie, Lawry, Cates) was another type of band, they sounded very different. Almost all Petra fans I know of still consider The Dream Team to be the "real" Petra, even though it's nonsence to talk about any incarnation as the "real" Petra. But these guys played the hits, we all like, they made excellent concerts and once they disappeared, things really changed. What happened afterwards was ok at its very best, some of it was embarrasing.

However talking about The Dream Team I started worrying that even putting back The Dream Team on stage wouldn't be the real fix anylonger. Why not? Well of course there would be a lot of fans who would be very happy. I also believe it would be easier for them to tour and get dates than Classic Petra.

So why am I sceptical? The heart of such a band would be Hartmann and Schlitt and to some extent also John Lawry. Now take a look at what is going on with Classic Petra. Auto-tune, reuse of Volz' songs on a Petra record, "live" performances with mainly playback music and so on. This dosn't leave me with the impression of a very inspired, very perfectionistic and creative band at all. Look at the "II guys from Petra". Nowhere near what they did previously. I myself have vitnessed Schlitt doing a very, very sloopy performance as a solo act, seen embarrasing live performances on the net and so on. To put it very short: I have seen these guys fail so many times that when it comes to the music part of it, I really don't expect very much from anyone of them. Hard to say, but this is how i feel about it. They have disappointed me again and again during the last 15 years or so.

I have the great memories of what they were. That's my interest in Petra.

[Preacherman777]

I don't see a whole lot of difference myself. The difference between the band we have now and the so called "Dream Team" boils down to two people. One is Mark Kelly, who is there rather than Ronny Cates and well, Mark is every bit the bass player Cates was and was even there for John's first two albums, so not exactly unknown in the John era. Besides, I seriously doubt that anybody really goes to see a band for the bass player. The other person of course is John. In 1986, John was the perfect vocalist for the direction Petra wanted to go after Volz departure and it worked great. Some say John was better, some say Greg was better, but I think most of us liked them both. They are both very well known as vocalists for Petra and while John may have an edge for the younger folks, Greg is very fondly remembered by the older fans (who are the ones Petra is trying to reach now days) and to be brutally honest, John just isn't the singer he once was. Greg has lost some as well, but I don't think as much as John has.

Petra had pretty much petered out with John on lead vocals and granted, it wasn't the "Dream Team" in the end, but with Bob on guitar and writing and John on vocals, the difference was really only a minor one. While some interest remained in Petra, it was dwindling and concert dates and label interest were becoming harder to come by. So I really don't buy the argument that the "Dream Team" Petra would fair better than "Classic Petra". All things considered, and given the (on the life support) condition that Petra was in at the end, I think Classic Petra has done remarkably well and yeah, they had a hard time putting together a US tour, but it seems to be fairly well known now that they were asking too much and that was most likely the heart of the problem. The fact that any version of Petra is currently alive and well is dang close to a miracle if you ask me and I'm excited to see what is yet to come for Classic Petra.

[Dan]

Had a dream that John, Bob, Louie, Lohn Lawry (didn't see a bass player) were rehearsing and recording new intros for the concerts, to replace the aged and abbreviated ones from NOTW. John brought me a CD player that was running low on batteries. I hit play and they stood and watched my reaction. I woke up humming what I had heard. Think I will go record it today.

I had this same dream last night... it was the dream team recording JAH2

The strange thing was it was like Greg called John S and said, I think it is time you came back.. funny dream... not going to happen though..

Also in the same Dream GXV said he was worried about John Schlitt's health.

Man I have stupid dreams.

[Jan]

Daniel - cool, not stupid. Funny about GXV & John's health - John seems really healthy to me!