Pre-Party:
1) Circus Maximus: I wasn't very familiar with these guys (or any of the pre-party bands for that matter) but I was extremely impressed with both their performances and their song-writing ability.
2) Circle II Circle: Again, another great performance, really close to being tied for first, the new album sounds like it's going to be great.
3) Theocracy: A great opener, very impressive set of songs for an opening band.
4) Leatherwolf: Another solid performer, but something about Wade's stage presence was kind of...weird, at any rate, another great act.
Main show:
1) Thunderstone: I was familiar with these guys coming into the show, but by no means a die-hard or anything like that. Their performance exceeded all of my expectations, however. As soon as their set got underway I had a feeling it would be my favorite of the show and I turned out to be right. The Finnish cussing lesson was great too, vittu is the most versatile curse word in any language.
2) Evergrey: I have 3 Evergrey cd's, and I've tried really hard to get into them, but it just never happened. Hell I even saw Evergrey over the summer and I still wasn't impressed. But something about Friday night's performance really worked for me, maybe it was their stage presence or that string quartet or something, but I thought they played an awesome set. My only complaints are that the choir and strings seemed underutilized at times (moreso the choir), and it was honestly the only time during the weekend I felt a band played for too long. Still, a phenominal show.
3) Jorn: This was the act I made the trip for, and I was pretty much 100% sure that it would be the highlight of the show for me. Jorn is a great performer, but as other people have mentioned, I felt there could have been a little more audience involvement during the set. I kept expecting him to take a break at some point and at least say something, but it didn't happen for a long time. This is a hard one for me to judge because I'm a rabid fan of his singing, but even so I have to acknowledge I enjoyed other PP acts more than him. This was my second time hearing "Soulburn" live, and I for one feel removing the keyboard parts did not enhance the song. Maybe if I hadn't witnessed the asskicking power of Masterplan before, this would be #1, but that's sort of my standard for judging this one, sorry Jorn.
4) Epica: A big surprise for me. I could not get into their albums at all, all the songs sort of blended together for me, but live they put on a truly spectacular show, they got someone totally unfamiliar with their music (myself) involved in their show, good job. Too bad about Simone's reported attitude though, although I kind of caught a glimpse of it with her "I don't know if you know any of our songs" comment towards the beginning.
5) Freak Kitchen: I'm a big fan of IA's guitar playing, not a big fan of Freak Kitchen's music. After seeing them, I'm still not a fan of their music, but hot damn can they put on a show! Easily the most fun of any PPVII act.
6) Vision Divine: I'm a fan of the material they've put out on cd, and they put on a flawless performance, not much else to say here.
7) Mercenary: I enjoyed this one a lot, I thought their live show was a big improvement over their cd material (which is still great). Glenn's stage dive will go down in Progpower history.
8) Pyramaze: Never heard of them before, and they kicked ass. Definately deserve a bump up a couple slots if they come back.
9) Savage Circus: I thought this would be #2 or so for me coming into this, even without Thomen there. Thomas Nack is a very worthy replacement drummer but nevertheless I found this performance lackluster. I didn't even notice Jens reading off the lyrics, but what I did notice was that the band didn't look like a band. There was close to zero interaction between members, which was probably due to a number of factors, the band being very young, the guy who put it all together not being there, every member of the band having other committments, etc. My hat goes off to Piet though for giving the performance all he had, it felt like he was the frontman half the time.
10) Zero Hour: Slots 5-9 were hard to decide, this one wasn't. I hadn't heard of this band before, and they might have been better with their previous frontman, but I could not get into this performance at all. I don't mean to rip on the band or anyone in it, the singer had a fantastic voice, I just feel they lacked stage presence and I couldn't really get into their music.
Sorry to bore you guys with my long reply, hopefully someone will read it
