Moore no longer a member of Dream Theater, the band needed to find a replacement keyboardist for the forthcoming world tour in support of Awake. Before the tour started, the band had a headlining concert on September 9, 1994, at the Foundations Forum in Burbank, California. The album was to be unveiled in a live setting for the first time. Jordan Rudess's audition impressed the band, with Portnoy claiming that it had "blown his mind" and that Rudess was the "best keyboard player we'd ever seen". Rudess accepted the band's offer to perform with them at the Burbank show, but decided against joining the band for the entire tour. At the same time, he had received an offer to perform with the Dixie Dregs for shorter runs of shows and had a job with Kurzweil. Rudess also had a young family and was unsure if Dream Theater "was just going to be a flash in the pan". "I decided I would be better off going with the Dregs, continuing with Kurzweil, and being around for my family as much as possible," Rudess said. The show was not a success; the band were nervous of playing without Moore and were out of practice from not having played live for some time. Rudess eventually joined Dream Theater as a full band member in 1999. The band held another round of auditions and were impressed with Derek Sherinian. Sherinian, who studied at Berklee College of Music the year before Petrucci, Portnoy, and Myung did, had previously played with Alice Cooper and Kiss and enjoyed similar music to the other members of Dream Theater. He was offered the position on a trial basis at the beginning of October 1994, giving him just two weeks to learn two hours of highly complex music. "It's one thing going in to play for an artist with hit songs that you've heard since you were a kid, and the songs are ingrained in your mind," Sherinian said. "It was another thing altogether going in with music you've never heard before that is totally off the charts as far as technical prowess... But it is amazing what one will do to ascend... when I was in New York at the rehearsals, I would play the songs at night over and over on a loop so that I would be subliminally programmed and it would ingrain it in my head."