History Main / EpicInstrumentalOpener

* In a similar vein, about half of "Theme from Film/{{Shaft}}" by Music/IsaacHayes is the instrumental opening. Since this song isn't [[EpicRocking very long]], there isn't much time left for actual lyrics.

* The synth riff from Music/TheWho's "Baba O'Riley". Also "Won't Get Fooled Again" from [[Music/WhosNext the same album]].

* "Leave Them All Behind" by Music/{{Ride}}, somewhat similar to The Who's use of this trope.

** "Tightrope" from ''A New World Record'' is similar to Music/TheWho example above, in that the instrumental is actually the first minute of the track.

** Of course, their ultimate example of this trope is "Procession", an Epic Instrumental Opener for their ''entire second album.'' What really drives this home is that it [[FadingIntoTheNextSong segues into the next track, "Father To Son".]]

* Music/{{Nightwish|Band}}'s song "Music" opens with a three-minute-long instrumental.

* This is a recurring aspect of Music/{{Rush}}'s longer songs:

** Tchaikovsky played this trope straight in his first piano concerto. Although the first few bars are in the concerto's home key of B-flat minor when the piano makes its entrance the key switches to D-flat major (relative major of B-flat minor) as the orchestra plays an expanded version of the melody from the opening bars. After three or four minutes, the key shifts back to B-flat minor (and the time signature changes from 3/4 to 4/4), and the theme from the introduction is never heard again. In spite of this, the introductory theme is by far the most famous passage from the entire concerto.

* Music/AvengedSevenfold used this trope in their first album, "Sounding The Seventh Trumpet", in "Strength Of The World" from ''City Of Evil'', in "Save Me" from ''Nightmare'' and in "Exist" from ''The Stage.'' The last example has the lyrics start around seven-and-a-half minutes into a sixteen-minute song.

** The album version of "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)," also from ''Bat Out of Hell,'' itself nearly 12 minutes long, spends the opening two minutes on that [[EpicRiff iconic piano riff]].

* Gerard Joling's "Spanish Heart", the SequelSong to "Ticket to the Tropics", has a 2 1/2 minute Latin jazz intro that continues the theme of its predecessor's Epic Instrumental Closer.

* "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" by The Temptations has a nearly 4-minute-long instrumental opening.

* Music/{{Ultravox}}: "Western Promise" opens with a two-minute instrumental section in a five-minute song.

* The eponymous side-long title track of ''Close to The Edge'' by Music/{{Yes}} opens with a gaggle of environmental sound (birds chirping and what sounds like a rushing waterfall) which fades into a two-minute assault of seemingly chaotic guitar racket, occasionally overlaid with Jon Anderson's high-pitched, wordless chanting. Around the three-minute mark, a proper melody finally starts to emerge from the chaos, and it is only at the four-minute mark that Anderson steps in with probably the most cryptic, mind-boggling WordSaladLyrics he'd ever write this side of ''Tales from Topographic Oceans''.
** "Heart of the Sunrise" from ''Fragile'' has a three and a half minute bass intro before getting to the first verse.
* Music/KingCrimson's 1972 album ''Larks Tongues in Aspic'' opens up with "Lark Tongues in Aspic Part 1", a twelve-minute instrumental piece that can best be described as a collection of bizarre percussion rhythms and quiet, creepy violin lines, occasionally topped off (for the sake of diversity, you see) with some of the most aggressive and distorted heavy metal riffs heard in rock music up to that point.
** Similarly, 1974's ''Red'', consisting mostly of outtakes (extremely high-quality outtakes, mind you) from the previous two albums, opens with an eponymous eight-minute instrumental track. Structurally a pop song, with verses, a chorus, a middle-eight, and everything, the song once again has no lyrics and is filled with even more distorted, hyper-aggressive (for the period) riffage that seemed to point the way for everything from punk to grunge to death metal.

* "Magic Pig Detective" by {{Music/Melvins}} starts with three and a half minutes of ambient guitar feedback - it then segues into a faster section with vocals, which only lasts about two minutes.

* Music/{{Santana}}'s cover of "Black Magic Woman" from ''Music/{{Abraxas}}'' had a very long opening. In contrast, the original by Music/FleetwoodMac opens with a single distorted guitar chord before the vocals begin.

* "Crazy On You" by Music/{{Heart}} has an acoustic guitar intro of about a minute, before the main rocking riff, and eventually vocals, start.

* {{Trance}} tracks usually have minute or longer length percussion intros to facilitate DJ mixing, but the original version of Music/{{Underworld}}'s "Born Slippy"(not NUXX) has a rather elaborate 3-minute breakbeat intro before the synth melody kicks in.

* Music/{{Nightwish}}'s song "Music" opens with a three-minute-long instrumental.

* Music/{{Genesis}} and the opening 2 songs of the album ''Duke''. Takes a couple of minutes for "Behind the Lines" to start the vocals, and a minute or so for "Duchess" to start.

* Music/TheCure's "Fascination Street" has a 2:23 intro (out of a total time of 5:16).

* The bombastic guitar solo at the beginning of "You Really Got Me" by TheKinks.

* A concerto, written for a featured instrument with a larger ensemble (such as violin and orchestra), often opens with the first theme introduced by the ensemble while the soloist waits. When the soloist enters, it is often to end the first theme and introduce another. Depending on the overall scale of the piece, the soloist might sit by for several minutes; as time went on and pieces, in general, grew longer, an audience member might be forgiven for wondering whether the soloist was ever going to play. On the other hand, many composers, particularly during the later Romantic era, chose to open with a dramatic statement by the soloist, possibly as a deliberate subversion of the traditional approach. Mozart's "Jeunehomme" piano concerto (KV 271) is one of the earliest concertos where the soloist is heard from within the first few bars, though it proceeds with a conventional opening tutti after a brief call-and-response bit. The more usual later patterns were to have the soloist enter immediately with the main theme [[note]]e.g. Beethoven's fourth piano concerto, Mendelssohn's violin concerto, Brahms' second piano concerto, Prokofiev's second violin concerto, Elgar's cello concerto, Rachmaninoff's second and third piano concerti[[/note]], or with a dramatic opening cadenza[[note]]e.g. Beethoven's fifth ("Emperor") piano concerto, Schumann's piano concerto, Grieg's piano concerto, Brahms' double concerto, Saint-Sa&emul;ns' second piano concerto, Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto, Barber's piano concerto[[/note]].

* A concerto, written for a featured instrument with a larger ensemble (such as violin and orchestra), often opens with the first theme introduced by the ensemble while the soloist waits. When the soloist enters, it is often to end the first theme and introduce another. Depending on the overall scale of the piece, the soloist might sit by for several minutes; as time went on and pieces, in general, grew longer, an audience member might be forgiven for wondering whether the soloist was ever going to play. On the other hand, many composers, particularly during the later Romantic era, chose to open with a dramatic statement by the soloist, possibly as a deliberate subversion of the traditional approach.[[note]]Just to name a few of the most famous examples where the soloist enters either immediately or within the first two or three bars: Mozart's "Jeunehomme" piano concerto, Beethoven's fourth and fifth ("Emperor") piano concerti, Mendelssohn's violin concerto, Schumann's piano concerto, Brahms' second piano concerto, Grieg's piano concerto, Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto, Elgar's cello concerto, and Rachmaninoff's first three piano concerti.[[/note]]

* "I Ran (So Far Away)" by Music/AFlockOfSeagulls from their 1986 GreatestHits album and all later releases of their first album has a 1:34 long opening sequence. "Standing In The Doorway" from the debut album has a 1:57 long opening.

** ''Out of the Blue'' actually has two:

** "Eldorado Overture" from ''Eldorado'', which opens with Jeff Lynne reciting a "voice-of-God" prologue to the song over subdued instruments before the instrumental climbs to its climax.
** "Prologue" from ''Time'' does the same thing, though the buildup leads straight into the next track.