 City: Baarlo
Location: Sjiwa
Website: http://progpower.eu/
After discovering last year that ProgPower is the coolest festival ever, I bought my tickets for the 2009 edition early. ProgPower Europe is a guarantee for awesome music, a wonderful atmosphere and great afterparties. On top of that, you get to sleep at a castle and talk to most of the bands playing at the festival, how cool is that?
Friday:
Despite of some train delays, I still managed to arrive at Castle De Berckt in time to check in and drop my baggage. Soon, the check-in transformed into sitting in the sun and having a cold beer with familiar faces who also attented the 2008 edition of Prog Power. After this and the traditional friday visit to the local Chinese restaurant, the festival could really start.
The first band to play was
Cirrha Niva, who just released a great new album after many years of silence. Unfortunately, this show wasn't a really good way to promote the album, because the bass player wasn't around (they had to run a tape), the sound and light weren't very good and the band members didn't look very confident on stage. A missed opportunity for this Dutch band to present themselves to potential fans.
Cloudscape started with an even worse sound than Cirrha Niva, but fortunately this got better during the show. The audience really liked the melodic progressive/power metal of this sympathetic Swedish band with their charismatic frontman. Without being exceptional, Cloudscape managed to not only make a good impression on their fans, but also on those who weren't familiar with the band yet. Very solid.
The headliner of the friday was
Andromeda. This band is highly appreciated among lovers of progressive metal, so many people were looking forward to their show. Personally, I'm not a big fan of their music, but I did notice that they are impressive musicians and most of the people in the venue seemed to be having a great time, so I'll just accept the fact that Andromeda doesn't do it for me, despite of being really good at what they're doing. As I found out later, they're also very good at partying :)
Unfortunately, the common afterparty in the basement of Sjiwa couldn't take place due to some horrible teenage disco event, but prog fans are rather inventive and took charge of Castle De Berckt. After some wall climbing, beer drinking and other more or less questionable activities, it was time for bands and fans to head to bed around 5 a.m. with two more exhausting days to go.
Saturday:
My head hurts! I probably wasn't the only who woke up with that feeling, but there's nothing that some painkillers and a decent brunch can't fix. Another exciting day coming up, let's go back to Sjiwa!
The venue wasn't very crowded yet when the first band of the day,
Akphaezya from France, entered the stage. Were people too hung over or was it the music that made people stay away? Akphaezya isn't exactly your average prog band with their mix of jazz, metal and Kate Bush-like escapades, so I totally loved their show. Nehl Aëlin is a very charismatic frontwoman, especially when she's grunting while wearing a flowery dress (or dancing on a bar stool at the afterparty). But it's not just her, the band contains of excellent musicians and the songs are definitely interesting. Probably not everybody's cup of tea, but they managed to impress quite a few people.
Onwards to
Vanity! Ever heard a bunch of 18-year Polish guys playing music that reminds you of established technical metal bands like Opeth and Cynic, combined with elevator music? Well, I have now and I must say that these guys are definitely talented. Their musicianship and songs show that Vanity can make it big in the future, but there are also some flaws to work on, mainly their insecure stage performance and their clean vocals. Nothing that some experience and singing lessons can't help though, so keep an eye on Vanity in the future.
Chaos Divine is an Australian band that couldn't impress me on their myspace page, but after partying with their friends the night before, I decided to be nice and watch their show. It was a pleasant surprise for me, energetic and much better than the impression I had of these guys. Ironically, I was watching the gig with someone who had really high expectations and was slightly disappointed, but all in all, it was a solid show, good enough for me to give their music a second chance. And if the music wouldn't be enough, their true Australian party spirit would be!
After getting some dinner, it was time for one of the bands I was dying to see:
Seventh Wonder. I clearly wasn't the only one, as their latest album, "Welcome to Mercy Falls", made an incredible impression in the progressive metal scene. Today's show was the last show on Seventh Wonder's tour and a revenge for their last show in the Netherlands, where they were the victims of Murphy's Law. Today, everything was much better: the sound was good, the singer was healthy and no instruments were broken. This lead to a really great show, only disturbed by some misunderstanding about the length of the setlist. Tommy Karevik proved to be one of the greatest singers in the world, but the rest of the band was pretty amazing too. Still, I would've appreciated Seventh Wonder even better if they'd play my two favourite songs, but let's not be too picky.
Before the festival, I was wondering why
Nahemah was so high up the billing. They're undoubtfully the best Spanish metal band I know, but also different from most ProgPower bands. The band soon proved to be worthy of its position though. The band consists of a few small guys and a huge singer, which looks a bit funny, but doesn't distract you from the music. Their mix of progressive death metal and melancholic postrock worked really well on the ProgPower stage and I was really impressed with the atmosphere they managed to create. A very pleasant surprise!
Saturday's headliner was
Mercenary. Maybe not a really progressive band, but their powerful metal sound worked really well and they managed to create one big headbanging mass. Mercenary clearly is an experienced live band, crushing the audience like a well-oiled machine with a balanced mix of songs from their great latest album, "Architect of Lies" and older favourites. The sound was excellent, the performance was the best so far and Mercenary seems to have a neverending supply of kick-ass metal songs, so this show was one big celebration of metal. Hell yeah!
After Mercenary's gig, people entered the basement for the first real afterparty. Great music, lots of beer and interaction between bands and fans set the right atmosphere for a great party, so everybody could head back to the castle happily in the middle of the night. It's been another awesome day!
Sunday
The last day already and no headache for me this time. After two days, I really started to feel my feet and I got rather tired from not sleeping enough, so I decided to skip
Knight Area and
Prospect. Heard good things about Prospect though and mixed feelings about Knight Area, depending whether people liked their relatively soft music or not.
The day really started for me with
Enochian Theory. At least, that was the plan, but this band totally wasn't my cup of tea with their everlasting intros and desperate vocals. At least, that's how it occured to me, there were people enjoying themselves with this band too. So instead of watching the band, I decided to chill out in the basement a little, have some tea and skip
Evergrey's acoustic show in favour of dinner. You could call it a lazy day.
Finally awake and energetic again, it was time to see
Neverland. Neverland is a project of the Turkish band Dreamtone and the Greek singer Iris Mavraki. Add to that that they have an Armenian webmaster and I'd like to say: "eat your heart out, xenophobic nationalists!". I was curious about this gig, because I've been partying with the Neverland for two days already and I wondered if they could still put up a good show. Well, they could! The band was very enthusiastic and energetic, which clearly had its effect on the audience. The music reminded me a bit of Blind Guardian at times, but with a more oriental touch and the gig was generally very good. Just to add a critical note: the female vocals could be better, as they were clearly out of key at times.
Time for my personal favourites of the day:
Hacride. I totally loved this band at Graspop last year and two of their albums are in my cd player constantly, so expectations were high. Not high enough, apparently, because I was still totally blown away. The band has grown immensely on stage, with a dark and atmospheric performance, incredibly heavy riffing, an amazing session drummer and an energetic frontman. Are these the shy guys I've seen last year? Hacride came, saw and killed, with a surprising focus on their longer and darker songs. This worked really well to get people into a certain trance, only to be taken out when the show ended too soon. What an amazing band!
After the Hacride gig, the music side of the festival was basically over for me.
Evergrey still had to play, but I was fully satisfied already. I decided to take a look anyway, as Evergrey is definitely not a bad band, but I didn't last long. I know that metal is supposed to be relatively loud, but there are certain limits to it and I refuse to make my ears bleed with a massive wall of sound. Is this what they had to soundcheck more than an hour for? Seriously, the volume was way too loud to enjoy the Evergrey show, so I left quickly after hearing only one song. When talking to people later, I heard that the feelings about this show were mixed, that's all I can say about it.
The sunday afterparty was even more extreme than the friday and saturday. Lots of alcohol, happy hardcore, circle pits, flowery headbands, walls of death and flügel, body slamming on sleeping people... let's just say that it was jolly good fun and most people didn't feel so good when they had to check out early on monday morning. I'm already looking forward to ProgPower 2010!
Review by: Lykle
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