I arrived in Los Angeles about 3:30 p.m. on Friday. The plane was delayed because of a plane crash. My good friend was kind enough to pick me up at the LAX airport and drove me to the hotel.
They opened the door around 6 p.m., the show started at 7 p.m.
Sinkadus started with their first solo album "Aurum Nostrum" that's the only album they have released. Sinkadus music was very mellow and similar to Anglagard's. They had 2 female members who played violin and flute/vocal. This band had male and female singers.
At the first couple songs they had some sound problems but finally they could fix it. I could not remember the song names because they were almost instrumental and they sang in Swedish. This is hard for me to remember any. I heard that they would release a live album at the Progfest sometimes soon.
I have not heard anything by Arena before I saw the show. Their performance was very very good and very exciting. They were one of excellent live bands IMHO. Mick Pointer (ex-Marillion) was on drums, Clive Nolan (IQ & Pendragon) was on keyboards and John Jowitt (IQ) was on bass. Arena sounded very heavy....I could say they sounded very much like prog metal instead of neo prog. This might because of the lead singer (new one) sounded like James LaBrie (Dream theater) or Ray Alder (Fates Warning). I mean from the way he acted on stage. Arena played pretty long and people asked for the encore many times.
They had the new guitar player but I can't remember his name. He replaced Keith More.
Le Orme was the best band of the first day in my opinion. It's not because I'm biased or anything, but everyone could say the same thing. Le Orme had only 2 original members and 2 more new members. This time was the first show of the band in 20 years, so they played very well. The guitar player/lead singer dressed in all white and sat in front of the stage playing the sitar. Everyone in the band dressed in white. Le Orme played the entire album of "Ferona E Sorona" (my favourite album), and they also played many songs from the new album.
The first day ended about 2 a.m. and I was too sleepy and too tired but very happy.
Regarding RITUAL who could not play on Progfest, so they had BIGELF instead.
Oh well, what can I say...Keith Emerson was at Progfest!!!!
Bigelf started with a heavy mellotron tune, and there was a sound problem before the end of the song, but they still played until the end. The problem was we could not hear the mellotron, so they had to fix it for a couple minutes. And people requested them to play the first song again. The band did not play it. I think they were pissed off or something.
Bigelf had 4 members I believe. They sounded VERY MUCH like Lucifer's friend, Uraigh Heep or early Deep Purple with Keith Emerson influence. The keyboard set looked so much like Keith Emerson's, and he dressed like Emerson in the 70's. That's cool.
They played only about 1 hour....no more.... They had few songs I guess. I did not know any of their songs at all.
This was the only band that I heard people yelled "Spock's Beard rules!!!!!!!" too loud. So, I though they should be a great band because I have never heard their music before. And this was the second time that Spock's played at Progfest. They were at the Progfest'95.
Spock's Beard sounded a lot like prog metal......again?? But it's true! Some people said they sounded like ELP, but I DID NOT think so. They played songs from every album including the new one....and one new song for Progfest only. Spock's music sounds like Yes with some metal influence.
Yeah! I followed him from San Francisco to LA. I saw Wetton on Wednesday night, May 21 (acoustic show) in SF.
Guess which song did he started with??? At the SF show (acoustic show) he started with Heat of the Moment...:( But this time was for real prog fans, so he had to start with In the dead of night, UK song, and followed with 30 years. I remembers some songs he played on that night, they were..... "Starless and Bible Black" and he said "this is a real f**king prog song" and laughed!!!! hahaha... (He was right!).....Book of Saturday, Battle line and some solo works..some Asia.... He didn't play Easy Moneyat all, I was a bit disappointed because I really hoped to hear Easy Money with an electric band. His voice was still awesome even though he could not sing like what he did with King Crimson in the 70's
What I have heard from them was only from the "Roine Stolt - The Flower King" with no a "s" album. Roine Stolt was an incredible musician, he had a really deep voice and his guitar playing was very perfect. The band members dressed in colourful. They played songs from every album.
There were things for sale at the show, such as, the Progfest'97 t-shirts, t-shirts of bands who played in this event, cd's, etc.
The record convention was at the Omni Hotal, a couple long blocks from the Variety Arts Theater. I checked out my room and walked there with 2 heavy bags. I was wondering what the heck I brought with me. I brought 2 jackets because I thought it might be cold there, but it was so hot like , and I had to wear only t-shirts.
I met Greg walker (Syn-Phonic) there. There were a bunch of prog stuff from around the world, Germany...Italy..England...and more..
I had 3 members of The Flower Kings autographed on the cds. Le Orme was there too. Some record companies were giving some free tapes "Sample from Porcopine Tree/ Strontium 90 and Gong reunion in france" and "Stromkro Some of odd years"
I hope I would be able to attend Progfest'98 again, and hope that Magma , Brand X and Deus Ex Machina would play there.
(All images in this page appear in the Progfest'97 official program book except the ticket.)
AE
Progressive Rock / Metal Concerts