http://www.metalcrypt.com/pages/editorials.php?editorialid=24
"God, what a fucking disaster. If you're wondering why I'm here to bitch about this show a full month after it took place just keep in mind I needed the full month to actually recover from it. ProgPowerUSA VIII was the worst metal event I have ever attended, and as much as I love Pagan's Mind and Communic (and only a few of you reading this actually realize how much that is) I still wish I hadn't gone. Perhaps you and I differ on the value of money, but I could've easily simulated the ProgPower experience at home with a little fake crowd noise (only a little would be realistic), band CDs on a cheap stereo with distortion-blown speakers, and endless 6-dollar cups of beer. Of course to truly simulate it I would've had to gleefully pile money upon a bonfire the entire time, but barring that I could've at least avoided the 800 miles of travel and the 300 US dollars it cost to attend this incredibly shitty waste of time. Never, ever again will I attend ProgPower, not even to see a reformed Lost Horizon and a time-traveling 1984 Queensryche. Not even for free. Put it this way folks: the ticket was 125 dollars, the hotel (and I got a bargain at a fantastic Red Roof Inn around 7 miles from the event) was 90 per night, and gas was 68 dollars for the round trip. Not even taking the cost of food, drinks, and merchandise into account, it cost me over 300 dollars for two nights of heavy metal, and despite all of that, I still left Atlanta after Pagan's Mind on the first night, before Sonata Arctica (the "headliners" of the first night) had even hit the stage, because ProgPower was just so inherently shit. No band could have saved it for me, and if any band could have it would have been Pagan's Mind. Trust me. The 2nd night tickets you see in the above picture were never used, because when the second night started I was already back at home slamming Tequila, trying to forget the epic disappointment that was ProgPower 2007. I'm not "upset", I'm fucking angry, because ProgPower in its current form is not a mistake - it sucks by design. It sucks because the jerkoff/jerkoffs that run the event care far more about merchandising, commercialization, and cost-cutting than they do about actually setting up a great metal show. If ProgPower wasn't such a niche show with a dependable core group of mindless fellaters Glenn Harveston would have been lynched this weekend, because mainstream bands and their fans sure as hell do not put up with this kind of crap.
First and foremost, the core of any good metal show is the bands, and the quality of the band lineup this year was very mixed. I knew who was playing when I bought my ticket, so this is not an excuse to hate on the show, the inclusion of some sub-par bands merely made the primary musical problem far, far worse. That primary problem was the worst live sound at a non-amateur event I've ever witnessed in my entire life (and I'm 27). Just imagine a sound engineer who cranks every single channel to the max, regardless of distortion, as well as maxing out the bass, mid, and high. Now imagine this "sound engineer" left said board that way for the entire night, and the only time he ever touched it again was to repeatedly mess up the musicians by turning their channels on and off (especially the vocals) seemingly at random. This encapsulates why I hated ProgPower, in a nutshell. Moving around the venue didn't help the sound quality - I even tried to sneak up near the front of the standing room area, but it sounded even worse up there. I brought along a high quality pair of "military grade" earplugs, something I normally would never do... but I had heard rumors about this event, rumors apparently true. The earplugs merely muted most of the high end tone, giving me the experience of listening to a ProgPower bootleg (something none of you will ever be able to do because the show is run by a Fun Nazi). 125 dollars per ticket, the fans themselves paid through sponsorships a large portion (or all) of the band fees and Glenn can't even hire a single decent sound engineer? The bass and drums sounded fine, punchy and room filling, but every single band (including Pagan's Mind) had horribly piercing guitar, vocal, and keyboard tone. As someone who's "all about the music", this ruined the event, all by itself, and there is no excuse for it, except perhaps that ProgPower's organizer/promoter Glenn Harveston is "all about the money", and not about the music.
Glenn must have a lot of coasters to get rid of, because he ran the incredibly annoying ProgPower DVD/CD advertisement in a loop (a 20 second loop, no less) on both large stage screens throughout most of the night (and during the entire Virgin Steele set). This speaks for itself, and is very indicative of the mood of the event - it's all about merchandising and commercialization. There were a solid hundred fans (at least) who only came for merchandise and to mingle with the bands - they didn't give a shit how any band sounded because they didn't actually leave the booth/bar area and go inside, and I fear this is the ProgPower core that pollutes the official board and rejoices at every bad decision Glenn makes as if he's the second coming of Raptor Jesus. I talked to four or five people who sat near me at the event, and not a single one of them was happy with the sound. One of them said she was going to complain after the night was over, because of what happened during Virgin Steele's set, but I have no idea if she did. Personally, I knew better than to complain, because at a festival where the promoter bans all digital photography (of any kind, even cell phone cameras) solely to keep the random bootlegger from adding ProgPower to his low-quality collection (and possibly taking a couple of sales away from Glenn's almighty ProgPower DVD) you can be sure he's a shallow fucking snob who doesn't care about typical metal fans who came to enjoy their favourite bands live. I promise you, we are the furthest thing from his mind. For fucks sake, the guy passes around phrases like "crossover appeal" and "exploding album sales" to justify his decisions for band choices - where do you think his interest is? Just go view the forum thread about next year's event, shaping up to be the worst lineup yet in ProgPowerUSA's short history.
What I can't figure out is why he tries to get mainstream commercial sounding bands (like Into Eternity and Raintime) to fill out the lineup of extremely fringe prog acts (Redemption is the definitive example but such a list could go for pages) and traditional power metal bands. Why even create such a hellspawn mixture if you never have any problems selling tickets? Oh, doth mine Virgin Earse detect a dirty white lie? I'd like to dedicate an entire editorial to the disgusting practice of fan sponsorship (and the bidding process that makes it disgusting) but I can't because of lack of time and effort. It is possible that band sponsorship may help create the above problem of conflicting music styles featuring at the same event, but I don't have a definitive answer for you. An editorial about these issues would be an entertaining read with the information I have so far, but I don't have the time or desire to collect the further evidence needed to make it factually accurate and convincing to my personal standards (and after this article many of the people I've talked to about ProgPower will probably be less than keen to continue any further discussions). You'll just have to take my word (and opinion) at face value. Or don't. I really don't care if you want to waste your money, wasting money is your right as a first world citizen.
For those of you that never read a full editorial and only scroll to the bottom to read the summary, here it is: I attended ProgPower expecting a high quality metal show focused on the music, and I didn't get that. All I got was intense disappointment at the shameless commercialism on display and anger at the ridiculous waste of money. Please, if you're considering attending ProgPower for the music: Don't. Shameless commercialism, awful lineup decisions, and terrible live sound quality make this one a time and money sink you would do well to avoid."
lol
"God, what a fucking disaster. If you're wondering why I'm here to bitch about this show a full month after it took place just keep in mind I needed the full month to actually recover from it. ProgPowerUSA VIII was the worst metal event I have ever attended, and as much as I love Pagan's Mind and Communic (and only a few of you reading this actually realize how much that is) I still wish I hadn't gone. Perhaps you and I differ on the value of money, but I could've easily simulated the ProgPower experience at home with a little fake crowd noise (only a little would be realistic), band CDs on a cheap stereo with distortion-blown speakers, and endless 6-dollar cups of beer. Of course to truly simulate it I would've had to gleefully pile money upon a bonfire the entire time, but barring that I could've at least avoided the 800 miles of travel and the 300 US dollars it cost to attend this incredibly shitty waste of time. Never, ever again will I attend ProgPower, not even to see a reformed Lost Horizon and a time-traveling 1984 Queensryche. Not even for free. Put it this way folks: the ticket was 125 dollars, the hotel (and I got a bargain at a fantastic Red Roof Inn around 7 miles from the event) was 90 per night, and gas was 68 dollars for the round trip. Not even taking the cost of food, drinks, and merchandise into account, it cost me over 300 dollars for two nights of heavy metal, and despite all of that, I still left Atlanta after Pagan's Mind on the first night, before Sonata Arctica (the "headliners" of the first night) had even hit the stage, because ProgPower was just so inherently shit. No band could have saved it for me, and if any band could have it would have been Pagan's Mind. Trust me. The 2nd night tickets you see in the above picture were never used, because when the second night started I was already back at home slamming Tequila, trying to forget the epic disappointment that was ProgPower 2007. I'm not "upset", I'm fucking angry, because ProgPower in its current form is not a mistake - it sucks by design. It sucks because the jerkoff/jerkoffs that run the event care far more about merchandising, commercialization, and cost-cutting than they do about actually setting up a great metal show. If ProgPower wasn't such a niche show with a dependable core group of mindless fellaters Glenn Harveston would have been lynched this weekend, because mainstream bands and their fans sure as hell do not put up with this kind of crap.
First and foremost, the core of any good metal show is the bands, and the quality of the band lineup this year was very mixed. I knew who was playing when I bought my ticket, so this is not an excuse to hate on the show, the inclusion of some sub-par bands merely made the primary musical problem far, far worse. That primary problem was the worst live sound at a non-amateur event I've ever witnessed in my entire life (and I'm 27). Just imagine a sound engineer who cranks every single channel to the max, regardless of distortion, as well as maxing out the bass, mid, and high. Now imagine this "sound engineer" left said board that way for the entire night, and the only time he ever touched it again was to repeatedly mess up the musicians by turning their channels on and off (especially the vocals) seemingly at random. This encapsulates why I hated ProgPower, in a nutshell. Moving around the venue didn't help the sound quality - I even tried to sneak up near the front of the standing room area, but it sounded even worse up there. I brought along a high quality pair of "military grade" earplugs, something I normally would never do... but I had heard rumors about this event, rumors apparently true. The earplugs merely muted most of the high end tone, giving me the experience of listening to a ProgPower bootleg (something none of you will ever be able to do because the show is run by a Fun Nazi). 125 dollars per ticket, the fans themselves paid through sponsorships a large portion (or all) of the band fees and Glenn can't even hire a single decent sound engineer? The bass and drums sounded fine, punchy and room filling, but every single band (including Pagan's Mind) had horribly piercing guitar, vocal, and keyboard tone. As someone who's "all about the music", this ruined the event, all by itself, and there is no excuse for it, except perhaps that ProgPower's organizer/promoter Glenn Harveston is "all about the money", and not about the music.
Glenn must have a lot of coasters to get rid of, because he ran the incredibly annoying ProgPower DVD/CD advertisement in a loop (a 20 second loop, no less) on both large stage screens throughout most of the night (and during the entire Virgin Steele set). This speaks for itself, and is very indicative of the mood of the event - it's all about merchandising and commercialization. There were a solid hundred fans (at least) who only came for merchandise and to mingle with the bands - they didn't give a shit how any band sounded because they didn't actually leave the booth/bar area and go inside, and I fear this is the ProgPower core that pollutes the official board and rejoices at every bad decision Glenn makes as if he's the second coming of Raptor Jesus. I talked to four or five people who sat near me at the event, and not a single one of them was happy with the sound. One of them said she was going to complain after the night was over, because of what happened during Virgin Steele's set, but I have no idea if she did. Personally, I knew better than to complain, because at a festival where the promoter bans all digital photography (of any kind, even cell phone cameras) solely to keep the random bootlegger from adding ProgPower to his low-quality collection (and possibly taking a couple of sales away from Glenn's almighty ProgPower DVD) you can be sure he's a shallow fucking snob who doesn't care about typical metal fans who came to enjoy their favourite bands live. I promise you, we are the furthest thing from his mind. For fucks sake, the guy passes around phrases like "crossover appeal" and "exploding album sales" to justify his decisions for band choices - where do you think his interest is? Just go view the forum thread about next year's event, shaping up to be the worst lineup yet in ProgPowerUSA's short history.
What I can't figure out is why he tries to get mainstream commercial sounding bands (like Into Eternity and Raintime) to fill out the lineup of extremely fringe prog acts (Redemption is the definitive example but such a list could go for pages) and traditional power metal bands. Why even create such a hellspawn mixture if you never have any problems selling tickets? Oh, doth mine Virgin Earse detect a dirty white lie? I'd like to dedicate an entire editorial to the disgusting practice of fan sponsorship (and the bidding process that makes it disgusting) but I can't because of lack of time and effort. It is possible that band sponsorship may help create the above problem of conflicting music styles featuring at the same event, but I don't have a definitive answer for you. An editorial about these issues would be an entertaining read with the information I have so far, but I don't have the time or desire to collect the further evidence needed to make it factually accurate and convincing to my personal standards (and after this article many of the people I've talked to about ProgPower will probably be less than keen to continue any further discussions). You'll just have to take my word (and opinion) at face value. Or don't. I really don't care if you want to waste your money, wasting money is your right as a first world citizen.
For those of you that never read a full editorial and only scroll to the bottom to read the summary, here it is: I attended ProgPower expecting a high quality metal show focused on the music, and I didn't get that. All I got was intense disappointment at the shameless commercialism on display and anger at the ridiculous waste of money. Please, if you're considering attending ProgPower for the music: Don't. Shameless commercialism, awful lineup decisions, and terrible live sound quality make this one a time and money sink you would do well to avoid."
lol
