Hey everybody, this is my first post on the forum but this was my fourth ProgPower, and even though it's so hard to top your first time this year's was at least a tie
Cheers:
- Freak Kitchen for putting on such a great show for the showcase... I'm a huge VP fan and was really bummed when I heard the news, and I'd actually heard FK before but wasn't really diggin it... but seeing these guys live has totally changed my opinion!
- Threshold/Damien! I'm a big DW fan from the Ayeron/Star One/etc projects, one of my favorite vocalists... and I had no idea he was back in Threshold! Man what an awesome surprise that was, that alone cancelled out the VP disappointment. Plus it turned out he was staying in the hotel room across the hall from us -- Damien Wilson had a beer with us in our room, how can you top that?!
- Pagan's Mind put on another fantastic show, I was already a fan of these guys when they came the first time and they were even better this time around. Favorite guitarist of the night. Caught a drum head from the all-star jam and got everyone in the band to sign it (they were in our hotel too)... and their rendition of King Diamond's Welcome Home was another festival highlight for me
- Redemption: saw these guys at their first PP appearance as well, liked them but wasn't blown away... but this year really did it for me, fantastic set, went straight to the merch area and bought their latest CD
- After Forever: WOW. And again. WOW! What an amazing climax to the show... been fans of Floor and Joost for a long time, and thought the AF albums were 'pretty good'... holy shit nothing can compare to the power these guys have on stage. Enjoyed every millisecond of their set. And I'm so excited too that my band will be opening for them in Ottawa next week!!
- Staff at the Courtyard by Marriott: easily the best stay I've had out of the 4 years... great location and lots of star-gazing
Jeers:
- Where was our favourite bar tender?!
- The bar running out of food on Friday night
- Finally getting the world famous ProgPower Chicken Fingers on Saturday night and realizing they weren't worth the trouble anymore
- All-Star jam was a little long in the tooth for me, after being on the floor since before AF I was hurtin by 3am
It was great seeing lots of old friends and making lots of new ones too... shout out to Amanda, Julien, Rich, Curufin, Terri and Jeff, the rest of the TEOF gang, BJ and Aleyna, Chris from Freak Kitchen, Damien Wilson(!!!) and the Pagan's Mind boyz!