mad_taffer
Member
- Oct 4, 2007
- 193
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From a UK perspective Power Metal is quite frankly struggling to exist. We have some fantastic festivals which cater for all things metal - Sonisphere, Download and Bloodstock but only Bloodstock still tries to get PM bands on the stage. A guy here put up his own cash to put on a 3 day indoor festival last September (Metalfest) which although not exclusively PM had Primal Fear, Brainstorm, Vision Devine, Powerquest, Elvenking, Pathosray, Circus Maximus, and loads more. The turnout was poor and he lost a load of money. So please have no illusions that the UK is carrrying the flag.
The only gigs that get a good turnout are in London and this year I have caught one-off shows by Hammerfall, Edguy and Kamelot that were almost sold out. This year I have also seen Firewind, Blaze Bayley and Kiuas playing in clubs to 70 - 80 people. Having said that I am getting a definate buzz for Sabaton and I'm seeing them in London this Sunday. I am hoping for a sell out, which would be about 800 people!
We have no commercial radio stations that play the music, although I give praise to Bruce Dickinson who does a 3 hour show on BBC and has had Kiuas as guests!
At the moment it seems to me that Prog Rock and Prog Metal is getting a better showing!
All this is one of the reasons I have already bought my ticket for ProgPower USA next year.
Keep the faith!
Ok, this is another problem. I'm going to use Edguy as an example because they are currently doing this to their music. It's funny that gorobschnitt mentions power metal being in trouble. I have noticed that bands like Edguy are trying to ditch the power metal sound in favor of a more hard rock vibe. This is problematic for the same reason that I mentioned earlier...that 80's hair band connection. By trying to sound like that I believe that Edguy (and Tobias) is really shooting himself in the foot trying to get an American audience. The speedier stuff (thanks to Dragonforce/Guitar Hero) actually has peaked some interest, but the timing for these bands reverting to hard rock is not good. Kamelot also seems to be doing this with Ghost Opera. I actually think that Symphony X would do good to release a track like The Accolade, because I have let people that into classic rock hear that and they love it. It just seems ironic to me that these bands are turning their sound towards 80's metal/hard rock. Personally I liked that music, but they need to look at what happened to those bands as a result.