MADNESS REIGNS - Wednesday Workshop with Jon Oliva

[LunaTEKKE]

Wow, really surprised there isn’t already a thread up for the Jon Oliva workshop.

This is my 7th year attending the festival. Every year, I see some bands I like…some bands I love…some bands I don’t care for, and some bands who earn my respect for putting on a kick ass show, even though their music isn’t my cup of tea.

And then there are moments of PURE MAGIC. Which is what this workshop was.

“Musical genius” is such a cliché, but how else can you describe The Mountain King? And even that doesn’t do justice to his passion, heart, and quick wit.

Many, many thanks to all who made this possible! And can't wait to hear us on the new JOP release!

 

[Kong]

As posted on our facebook page:
Jon Oliva Songwriting Workshop

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Thank you to all in attendance at our first Sold-Out Songwriting Workshop
this week at the world famous ProgPower Festival in Atlanta Georgia. We packed up our
studio from here in sunny Florida and drove it to Atlanta for this special 2 hour show.

We discussed the process of turning Oliva's endless musical idea's into working demos.
We created and recorded a new song live, recording all the instruments and vocals
(audience participation included) in real time. Jon played some classics and some previously
unheard material as well. It was informative-educational-funny and often emotional as well.
It was a great chance for those lucky fans to crawl around the mind of one of the worlds greatest and most gifted singer/songwriters.

Video of this event will be posted soon...

Special thanks to Glenn and Jennifer Harveston...great promoters and even better friends.
It was a night we will never forget and we are hoping to take this unique experience on
the road for more to enjoy.

Cheers...and new record details coming soon!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[Kong]

And yes the "audience gang vocal" tracks will be on the official release of this song!
Great job people!

Damn, that was so much fun!.....Jon and I wish to thank you all again....and it was MAGIC!

 

[Azrael LenGraden]

Special events like this are what make ProgPower a one of a kind event... And Jon and Chris where awesome! Such a special show. Thanks

 

[eppst1]

Do you need our addresses to know where to send the royalty checks?

 

[modernwizardry]

Pure magic is a good way to describe it.

 

[Arabianhazard]

Best moment of my life.

 

[Pellaz]

A real highlight of the festival for me. Not just the creation of a song in about 90 minutes, but seeing Jon perform some classics acoustically was just amazing. "When the Crowds Are Gone" gave me goosebumps. Here's hoping it's available on video at some point, as well as the workshop!

 

[KingsGene]

That was awesome.

 

[PureXul]

"When the Crowds Are Gone" gave me goosebumps.

That was amazing.

Overall, I loved the event - a great blend of enough structure to keep it moving and interesting, but lots of off the cuff fun. Kudos to Jon and Chris for pulling off something rather untested and doing a fantastic job of it!

 

[booB]

As a non-musician/non-songwriter, this was absolutely an incredible experience, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes the seed for more creativity from Yours Truly.

I love that we get to do cool shit like this at PPUSA.

 

[esa]

Photo gallery

 

[Diamond45]

I learned so much from The Master himself. It was a great time. So glad I was able to attend.

 

[Jasonic]

Set list please???

 

[compurocker]

Very much enjoyed this. Thank you!

 

[Meteornotes]

This was seriously one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed.

dt

 

[modernwizardry]

Set list please???

Not sure of everything but there was a short cover of Deep Purple's Child In Time that was awesome.

 

[Diamond45]

There wasn't a "set' per se, as Jon was discussing and demonstrating what it took to write and record a song - and that's basically what he did. In fact, there was an "audience participtation" section where we said "Oh" and "No" very loudly a couple of times.

It was all done on the fly and making it up as he went along. It was very good fun.

There were a couple of songs that he played as time fillers while work was being done between recording sessions. Jon closed with the infamous "When the Crowds Are Gone" which I love and is a very sad song.

 

[SkiBumMSP]

This was a really cool and fascinating experience that I was glad to get to participate in. It was very interesting to see how a song like that gets created and laid down for recording. I forgot to mention this in the "Cheers-n-Jeers" thread.

It would be really cool to see something like this in the future.

 

[miel]

JON OLIVA'S PAIN Issue ProgPower USA Songwritring Workshop Recap: "Informative, Educational, Funny, And Often Emotional As Well"

Posted on Friday, September 21, 2012 at 01:43:13 EST

JON OLIVA'S PAIN have checked in with the following update:


"Thank you to all in attendance at our first sold out songwriting workshop this week at the world famous ProgPower Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. We packed up our studio from here in sunny Florida and drove it to Atlanta for this special two hour show. We discussed the process of turning Oliva's endless musical ideas into working demos. We created and recorded a new song live, recording all the instruments and vocals (audience participation included) in real time. Jon played some classics and some previously unheard material as well. It was informative-educational-funny and often emotional as well. It was a great chance for those lucky fans to crawl around the mind of one of the worlds greatest and most gifted singer/songwriters.

Video of this event will be posted soon.

Special thanks to Glenn and Jennifer Harveston... great promoters and even better friends. It was a night we will never forget and we are hoping to take this unique experience on the road for more to enjoy.

Cheers....new record details coming soon!"

Jon Oliva recently discussed the band's forthcoming album with MetalBlast.net. An excerpt is available below:

Oliva: "I’ve got some weird ideas that I wanna try and I’ve got some time to do it. I don’t wanna do just 'another' JOP record, I’ve done four of those already. I wanna do something different. I have some material that I’ve wanted to put out for a while, that I’ll talk with the record company about, maybe putting something out quickly, like in the next four or five months, to give me more time to do this JOP record, because I want that to be special, and I’ve got some friends from other bands that are going to come and play. We’re going to do a regular JOP record and then a bonus disc with guest stars, kind of like the AVANTASIA thing but not a whole story. Tobias Sammet does a magnificent job with it, but I don’t have that much fucking time to write a whole story, so I’ll just have some friends from various bands come in."

Click here for the complete interview.