Ah.... Powermad. A 3 day/evening barrage of old school power, progressive, traditional and even doom metal. The fest was so far underground there were hardly any locals attending the show (which was held in a converted supermarket/warehouse type building in the edge of a shopping center outside Baltimore). The closest hotel I remember staying at was the Days Inn (there was basically nothing above a two star hotel chain in the area, but the Days Inn served its purpose). Hmm....I also remember a pretty darn good barbecue place.
I also remember that a good segment of the crowd (which was only about 100-150 people maximum) were old school posters at Perpetual Motion such as the great Ralf Walter, LarryD and your very own Harvester (I was as well, but pretty much kept to myself in those days). They took an annual group photo if I remember correctly, right near the stage and outside the venue. One of the coolest links between Powermad and Progpower (aside from Perpetual Motion and the festival concept itself) were the fantastic sampler double cd packages they used to give out as part of the festival perks, a true precursor to extremely well packaged samplers you see at PP today (and yes, filled with typographical errors, some of those downright hilarious).
Another interesting factoid is that the lights remained fairly bright at the fest because there were also vendors like Laser's Edge, Molten Metal and I believe even Century Media had a table there one year right in the stage area. (Yep, the vendors were in the same area as the bands, lined up against the wall on both sides of the supermarket/warehouse - they could watch the entire show between cd sales!! Now THAT would still be a great perk for any vendor who's a fan of the genres, obviously it would impossible to set things up that way at the Center Stage you see today).
Some acts I remember seeing are Jag Panzer, Manilla Road, Steel Prophet, Defyance (pretty darn good power/prog band who has even featured Lance King on vocals of all people if I remember correctly, though not at that time), Persiphone's Dream (of Progpower Pre-party fame), Marcel Coenen (of Lemur Voice & Sun Caged fame, yep, another PP Pre-party band), Mystic Force (main festival organizer Keith Menser's band), Reading Zero, Antithesis, October Thorns, Cauldron Born, Ehteria, Raven, Attacker, October 31st, Overlorde, Reign of Terror, Zandelle and Helstar (with James Rivera, who I actually remember teasing the audience that night that the band were on the verge of fully reforming and recording NosferaTWO, as a sequel to the original Nosferatu, one of their best albums). And yes, a fairly little known fact that your very own Evergrey made their U.S. debut right at this very festival. Hard to imagine that less than 10 years later they would be performing a mammoth show complete with an orchestra, choir and top notch production values.
On the downside - there was limited promotion, funding and organization for the fesitival. (Bands ran past their scheduled times with regularity, some bands still listed on the schedule never showed up at all, etc.). Another interesting note is that the festival used to run through Sunday, with half the already small crowd of the previous 2 days! As such, it was never really able to evolve past what seemed like an annual small class reunion of sorts (yes, it absolutely had that type of feel). Certainly a far cry from what Progpower has evolved into today, but nevertheless a fun and elite show which I was proud to be a part of and I'll always remember fondly.
Here's a really cool old interview with Keith Menser from 2001 that gives some great insight into the festival, the birth of Progpower and Mystic Force as well.
Going Powermad with Keith Menser of Mystic Force
Jason
EDIT - Ah, also found an old review of Powermad 2000.
Powermad 2000 Live Review
). Also, it was held in a venue with poor accoustics, far away from the nearest hotels, and where there was almost no place to eat nearby.
