After Dream Theater's successful 5 Years In A Livetime, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater called up , Jim Matheos of Fates Warning, Neal Morse of Spock's Beard and Pete Trewavas of Marillion. On Holloween 1998 in Marillion's newsletter 'eWeb', Pete Trewavas, varifies that Mike Portnoy is collaborating with other musicians to start one of the greatest and most powerful side projects that we could imagine.
Soon Matheos wasn't able to do the project and Roine Stolt from the Scandinavian Flower Kings was called apon for the project. After 3/4 of the year go by the foursome finally get a chance to play together, with all the music that had been written so far. Before July of 99' where they finally get together for their one and only recording session, they sent tapes of ideas through the mail. On July 3, posted on the Dream Theater website were some comments that all the members had made. "Paul, the studio owner wont let us out until we've made a mega prog CD" Roine Stolt comments.
October 10th 1999, according to Neal Morse, the group was titled as "Second Nature". A month later Stolt confirmed that the band would be named TransAtlantic not Second Nature.
Track listing was available on Nov. 21st 1999, and fans found out that there were only five songs which totaled to be about 75 mintues in length. Finally in March 2000 we were able to hear TransAtlantic's SMPT:e in it's final form. Starting with a 30 minute epic "All Of The Above". A short and beautiful ballad by Morse, "We All Need Some Light". Quick the quick and poppy "Mystery Train". The retro-hippy epic "My New World". And finally a cover of Procol Harum's epic, "In Held T'was In I".
After the prog-world heard the release, and bought the Limited Edition, TransAtlantic headed toward a semi-tour. They even broadcasted the Washington D.C. show on digitalclubnetwork.com, which is now on their archive until 2002. 7 shows which more than likely sold out, were held in mostly in Northern USA.
In January 2001, TA hit the studio again, and you can see their diary at the Official Site. Then they had a quick show at Namm, and in February and March 2001, they released Live In America on Video and CD.
In Oct. 2001 Bridge Across Forever was released. It marked many new traditions. Three long epics, "Duel With The Devil", "Suite Charlotte Pike" and "Stranger In Your Soul". You will also find another short ballad from Morse, "Bridge Across Forever".
Nov. 2001, TransAtlantic embarked on a European Tour. And a live DVD and possibly a VHS and CD of one of the shows will be released.
From http://planetizz.net/transatlantic/history.shtml
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