Having just attended this myself, I actually agree with alot of what is said.
However, keep in mind that this is a first-time effort for this festival, so there are going to be mistakes made (the one that really got my goat was the incorrect time on the tickets - still pissed that I missed most of Odin's Court's set :| purely due to the fact that I thought it didn't start until 7, when they actually started like around 6:15) and lessons learned.
I personally thought the line-up was very solid with plenty of excellent acts on there. For me, most of those bands, I've not seen live. The only ones that I did see before was Spock's Beard, Zero Hour and Odin's Court, so in the end, this was well worth the long as trip from Richmond, VA to go to.
'longshot9' hit the nail on the head with the recaps, so no point repeating what is already said in that regard, as I totally agree. However, I did stick it to the end during the Spock's Beard show (pretty cool the keyboardist remembered me from when I saw them at Jaxx last year!). The only thing was that I was friggan dogged-ass tired, though (plus imbibing in a "wine and cheese" party at the inn I was staying at, as well as drinking a screwdriver or two back at the suite, then having another 4 or 5 beers during the night, plus still the effects of the time change (it was really 5 in the morning to me by that time) did not help). I was up front right near the keyboards leaning against the front of the stage half asleep during Spock's Beard doing my best to try to stay awake. Also, I do agree, that I wish there was more seating available at that venue. By the end of both nights, my knees where friggan killing me (the last 25+ years of skiing certainly has taken its toll on my knees).
The crowd was actually very well behaved during this show. I don't recall any obnoxious drunks trying to ruin it for anybody else during those two days of the show.
I was very impressed with this show (other than the ticket-time mixup) and I hope I can go again. However, San Francisco is just such a friggan long as away so it is very unlikely that I'll get to go very often. I guess it has to be a lineup with alot of good bands that I've not really seen before to get me to come out again. ProgPowerUSA is just so much more feasible for me to go to as Atlanta is not that far away, thus non-stop flights are cheap and plentiful. But for those out there in that part of the world, and for which Atlanta may not always be feasible to get to, this opens up another option to go see the kinds of music and acts that we all really enjoy.
My Kudo's to Dave and crew for organizing this very excellent show and to all the totally awesome bands that played that night. For two glorious nights, friggan San Francisco was the place to be for metal! Now, for the only "kicked myself in the ass" moment, I was outside shooting the shit with D.C. Cooper and Danny (the singer from EyeFear) while eating a piece of pizza that I got up the street, and it never dawned on me to get somebody to take a quick pic of me with them! {DOH!}.
Keep up the awesome work Dave and I can only wish you awesome success and that this show will indeed get better and better!
