ProgPower USA IV

Harvester

The Promoter
Sep 16, 2001
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www.progpowerusa.com
Just a bit of blatant self-promotion since it hasn't hit these shores yet...

For Immediate Release: March 12, 2003

NIGHTWISH AND RAGE CONFIRMED TO HEADLINE PROGPOWER USA IV
ATLANTA - Finland's Nightwish and Germany's Rage have been confirmed to make their American debuts as headliners of ProgPower USA IV, which returns to Atlanta's Earthlink Live on September 5 and 6.
"It is always exciting for us as a band to take on new areas and see how our stuff goes down there," said Nightwish's Marco Hietala. "This time it's also quite flattering because we know that the USA and Great Britain are very hard places to win when you come from out of their native language areas, and to play as a headliner for our first time ever in the US... Wow, we'll do our best!"

After two decades together, Rage will make their long overdue first appearance on U.S. soil. "It's great that Rage will play the ProgPower festival this year," said Peavy Wagner. "Finally, after all these years, we can rock the U.S. Metal heads. It's gonna be fantastic."

Joining Nightwish and Rage, which will both perform exclusively at ProgPower USA IV, are New Jersey's Symphony X, Sweden's Evergrey, Florida's Circle II Circle, Germany's Vanden Plas, Italy's Secret Sphere, Denmark's Mercenary, Norway's Pagan's Mind, and California's Redemption, which now features vocalist Corey Brown, formerly of Magnitude Nine and Psycho Drama.

ProgPower IV will be the U.S. debuts for Vanden Plas, Secret Sphere, Mercenary, and Pagan's Mind.

"I'm very excited about performing at the ProgPower festival this year," said former Savatage vocalist Zack Stevens, who currently fronts Circle II Circle. "It's well known as one of the best metal festivals - even Ozzfest doesn't showcase the 'best metal bands' from America and Europe!"

Tickets for ProgPower IV go on sale May 5 at 10 a.m. EST via all Ticketmaster outlets. Advance "Gold Badge" tickets are already sold out. Only 800 tickets will be made available to the public.

Last year's festival - which featured Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, Angra, Edguy, Threshold, Pain of Salvation, Devin Townsend, Silent Force, Zero Hour, and Reading Zero - sold out in just six days, four months in advance of the show. Tickets were sold to 36 States and 18 countries as far away as Japan.

ProgPower USA is an affiliate of the ProgPower Europe Festival.
Sponsorship and advertisement opportunities are available via the ProgPower USA website and official program. A free CD sampler will be distributed to attendees. Interested bands should contact ProgPower USA.
 
Oyo said:
Glad I'm not going this year... I have never heard any of those bands before :)
As if you went for the bands last year. :p :D

Evergrey is the only band I'm interested in seeing, but I'm going for the same reason as last year -- to hang out with friends. I've already got my gold badge. :)
 
I'll be there. :)

At first, I wasn't too thrilled to hear the lineup but will enjoy seeing Evergrey for the first time. I will also enjoy seeing Symphony X (again, kinda). I saw the first few songs of their performance at ProgPower II but left due to a long trip back home and being very tired after their somewhat lengthy equipment setup. I am not too familiar with their music but plan to give them a chance and hope to enjoy their stage presence.

Nightwish should be interesting live, and if nothing else I can look at Tarja the whole time. :p

I will definitely be doing my homework and checking out the unknown (to me) bands in the coming months. I am, however, disappointed that Iced Earth wasn't on the bill. I was fairly sure they would be seeing as Jon Schaffer was around signing autographs last year, which I thought was a good indicator seeing as DC Cooper was at PPII and played at PPIII with Silent Force. Oh well. :(

Also, Jim's pick of Mercenary doesn't appear to be as "different" upon first glance as Nightingale at PPII and Devin Townsend last year at PPIII, but I haven't heard too much from this band so I'll definitely be more curious to check them out than some of the other bands (who I will give a fair chance).

I am glad that it seems to be more prog this year than power. :)
 
Symphony X is more than enough to garner my attendance. I’ll certainly miss Pain of Salvation though.
 
I agree. PoS easily put on the best live performance I've ever seen. I know they were at the first PP and were at last year's show. I wonder if I'd be getting my hopes up in assuming they'll be at PPV. :)

I think they should certainly share the every other year deal like Evergrey. They're even on separate years given that they played last year and Evergrey are playing this year. It'd work out nicely and ensure that I'd see Evergrey and PoS every other year. :p
 
How much will the tickets be?

What are the chances of getting 1 or 2 of the 800 available tickets?

Lina, how did you get a "Gold Badge" ticket? (They offer them to people who came to the show in previous years?)

There's actually more bands this year that I would like to see than there were last year... I LOVE Symphony X!!! Vanden Plas and Evergrey are cool... And I didn't even know Zack Stevens had a new band... I loved him with Savatage... They (with Zack) were the first band I ever saw play live... It was badass!

Somebody answer my questions, please... :)
 
YourFuneral said:
How much will the tickets be?

What are the chances of getting 1 or 2 of the 800 available tickets?

Lina, how did you get a "Gold Badge" ticket? (They offer them to people who came to the show in previous years?)

There's actually more bands this year that I would like to see than there were last year... I LOVE Symphony X!!! Vanden Plas and Evergrey are cool... And I didn't even know Zack Stevens had a new band... I loved him with Savatage... They (with Zack) were the first band I ever saw play live... It was badass!

Somebody answer my questions, please... :)
I'll do my best, as it'd be cool to have some more familiar faces there.

Lina got a gold badge because of me. I'll explain...I went to PPII in Nov. of 2001 and had Glenn (the promoter - started this thread) put me and my brother on the waiting list of people trying to get gold badges. We only got a normal ticket to PPII, as we were only able to make it to the first day to see Balance of Power, Nightingale, Ark, Angel Dust, and Symphony X. We were able to get 2 gold badges for last year's show and were pretty much insured the same number of gold badges this year since we previously had them. Glenn constantly has a high demand and a waiting list of people trying to get gold badges. This year he offered "blind" badges for those previous gold badge holders to go ahead and pay before knowing the band lineup. As part of the "blind" badge buying this year, my brother and I were able to buy one more badge for each badge we previously held. So, we got 2 more badges this year...one for Lina and one for Soul4Raziel since they both attended last year. :) That was long..but yeah.

You won't be able to get a gold badge since, well, they're sold out and have a high number of people on the waiting list. You could buy one from someone wishing to sell them on eBay, but I wouldn't count on that.

However, I'd advise you to have the money beforehand if you seriously want to go and just go to Ticketmaster as soon as the tickets go on sale (whatever date/time Glenn mentioned earlier in this thread) and buy 1 or 2 tickets then. Like he said, the regular tickets sold out in 6 days last year. I wouldn't expect them to sell out quite as quickly this year since there are as many "big names". However, I wouldn't wait around...definitely try to get tickets the first day they're on sale. Hope that helped. If you have any questions, send me a PM or e-mail me. :)
 
IanDork107 said:
Rage and Nightwish really blow. I may go, but it's not likely.
youshutthefuckup.jpg
 
Bleakest Harvest said:
Who the hell are Circle II Circle? They've just been confirmed for Wacken as well. Never heard of 'em.

Savatage off-shoot feat. former vocalist Stephens. Have yet to release an album.
 
ProgMetalFan said:
Savatage off-shoot feat. former vocalist Stephens. Have yet to release an album.
Have you actually heard anything from them? Why is it that you call them a Savatage off-shoot feat? Zack left Savatage because he was growing bored with their music... You're making it sound like this new band is a Savatage cover band (or copy - which wouldn't make much sense considering Zach's bored with that style)... Please explain...
 
Does anybody not like Pain of Salvation? I never understood what was so great about them...and I really dislike the vocals.