Behold... The Arctopus for PPUSA X!

[Evil Penguin]

Originally Posted by lasercd

Jason:

In my opinion a festival like ProgPower would best be served in the long run if it presented a broader scope of bands. Perhaps I give attendees too much credit.
Ken Golden

Yes, I do think you give them too much credit. They may get into these other bands if given the chance, but I think a good number will use these as break time to pick up merchandise, feed themselves, and hang out at the lounge.

I do think that all the video links on this forum for the less known PPUSA bands do very well to give their new music a fair chance before the fest starts.

And yes, Glenn has expressed some reservation about booking instrumental bands. People generally may want catchy chorus to sing along to and headbang to. There are always exceptions.

[Pellaz]

Well..... Ozric Tentacles has vocals -- in, like, two songs -- so I guess we can't rule them out completely for a future fest.

Originally Posted by lasercd

In my opinion a festival like ProgPower would best be served in the long run if it presented a broader scope of bands. Perhaps I give attendees too much credit but I think they would warmly embrace a variety of styles, rather than the narrow range we get now.

I suppose it's a matter of how wide your stylistic range is. After all, this year Glenn has booked bands as diverse in intensity as Riverside and Amorphis. Many observers have noted that Riverside is more of a NEARFest-style band than a PPUSA metal band, and Amorphis drew the usual, customary fire from the anti-growlies crowd. If PPUSA gets any more diverse, it would begin eroding its identity as the world's premier progressive- and power-metal event.

Glenn's method seems to work, since, all the criticism notwithstanding, the festival sells out each year. Even this year, when Glenn took a lot of hell for booking several bands that had passed under a lot of people's radars.

Having said that - it ain't my gig - it's Glenn's and he does what he wants. Its my job to show up and be a pain in his ass as often as possible.

[sh0kr0k]

I'm having some serious déjà vu