Prog Power Concert Review (Nightwish Pics)

nailz · Post by **nailz** » Mon Sep 08, 2003 11:17 pm

(pictures included throughout).

Getting There

Wednesday night/thursday morning: Pick up Goltark and motor our asses all the way to Atlanta, Goal: Pick up Curufin and Shippou (NeoGohan) From the Atlanta Airport at 500pm. We left at 230am. Drove all that way and ended up at the airport about 10 minuites after their flights got in. So we picked them up and whatever, and skirted back to our hotel. Well, what we thought was our hotel. See, The Granada had a room reserved for 5 people on Curufins Card, but for whatever reason, It got denied. So they gave the room away at 4pm that day. We got there about 530. At this point, I'm mildly upset, because I've been up since wednesday at 11am. So we eventually get a $50 discount and thrown into a single room, with a kingsize bed and a pull out couch. Whatever. It's somewhere to crash for the night. We get into the room and bam, no couch. Feck. So whatever. We get cots, pillows, towels, and beer and settle in for the night. More bad stuff happens, but in the end it's cool cause Curufin got drunk and I worked up a pretty good buzz, (and being very overtired) So after much fun of drunken stupor and getting to know each other, we crashed... at like 3am.

Day 1:

Friday: Get up at 8am and find out the hotel manager is from 30 minuites away from where I live. After some idle chitchat, we get things worked out and it's (mostly) all good. Cool. Head down for some breakfast, and marvel at the 2 Suits tried to make head and tales of all the metal heads that had invaded the hotel. I'm sure I saw some of the bands down there, but Hell if I knew what any of them looked like. So we get in line for ProgPower at 11am. First in line too. Good stuff. Hour goes by and who walks in but fuckin NIGHTWISH themselves!! Of course, I'm all like =O to say anything or whatever, and I'm sure they had a long trip anyway, so whatever. Sit there for a bit, and Tuomas (the nightwish keyboardest) came out and walked around a bit before going back in. Cool. He came back out some time later, and I had a few words with him, mainly good luck, and hope you guys rock tonight. He seemed more than happy to chat. Very cool guy. Curufin and I eventually got our pictures taken with him and his tour manager, who seemed more than happy to comply. Cool.

K.. the Bands:

Redemption
I didn't know what to really expect from these guys, and I can't say I was surprized by their performance, nor was I disappointed, really, at all. They didn't leave a hugely influencial mark on my "must listen to these guys" list, but they were a very good opener. I was banging my head a bit to them. Not too heavy, not really bad. Good stuff. I wouldn't mind seeing them back at PP5.

Mercenary
According to the program, Mercenary wasn't exactly a popular choice among PP4 goers, and the band knew it. Despite this, when the curtain opened, they immediately started tearing it up. I had no idea they were so frowned upon before they even got a chance to play, and I was looking more forward to seeimg them than anyone other than Nightwish. Fortunately, I was up front on the left side of the stage, and was not 10" from the stage too. They announced Mercenary and I went fucking bonkers. The crowd seemed to be headbaning a bit, but I gave them everything I had. My arm didn't come down during their entire set, nor did my head stop moving, and I was actually able to sing along. Gotark and Majin_Kenshin from the BG board were both right there with me, enjoying the hell out of the show (though neither had heard any of Mercenary's prior to the show) .. Mikkel (the lead singer) and Kral (the bassist + growels) seemed to really appreciate us as they graced us with their presence through most of the set, despite being on the far left of the stage. There wasn't one song that Mikkel wasn't over bending down in front of us headbanging and singing to us, nor one song Kral didn't look over and give us the \m/ (metal horns) ... Fucking incredible. After the (sadly short) set, Jakob made his way off the stage, setlist in hand, and guess who he gave it to? Well, here's a guess. ... I managed to go to the band signing the next day and have them all sign it for me. They were all very cool about signing it, and even seemed impressed when I produced the setlist. They're wicked cool. I got a poster from them too. I'm going to frame the poster, and put the setlist in the frame too.

Mercenary Pics:
Mercenary 1
Mercenary 2
Mercenary 3
Mercenary 4
Mercenary 5
Mercenary 6
Setlist, for those who missed it above.

Vanden Plas
God Almighty did these guys SUCK. I had never heard of them until that night, so I really didn't know what to expect. Someone told me they're a pretty good powermetal band with some prog style. I dunno. They had absolutely NO stage presence, no charisma, their performance was flat, dull, and just booring. I would have definitely liked to see either of the first two bands grab up the one hour slot over these guys any day. Not impressive at ALL. In fact, I had to catch myself more than once to not yawn during their stuff. I mean, I was right in the front, I'd have felt terrible If they were to look at me, and I'm yawning my ass off. (Boredom didn't help, but I was mostly getting pretty tired after that. As I said, I gave Mercenary just about everything I had.) Either way, Ick. Waste of an hour.

Nightwish
Supposedly the cream of the crop, the big draw, the reason everyone was here. Yah, I was hella pumped about seeing them, and they didn't dissapoint.. too much. See, They're from Finland, and this was their first US show. They were jetlagged to hell, I'm sure, and while you couldn't tell from Emppu, Jukka, Tuomas, or Marco, Tarja was just kinda zoned through the whole gig. I give her a lot of credit, she tried to put a lot of energy into everything she did, but she didn't talk to the crowd, hardly at all, that was mostly left up to Marco (Bass)...which was sweet, cause he did rule, to my surprize, but you could tell she just wasn't handling the time zone difference well yet. At one point, she needed to take a 5-10 minuite break, so the band did a cover of Crazy Train, which fuckin ruled. We were right in front of Tuomas, and got a few glances from the rest of the band every now and again, and I pulled everything else I had out of my reserve tank to sing along and throw whatever energy I could at them. They did play a fair amount of songs for an hour and a half, and a lot of good oens too. I was happy to have seen them. I think the highlights of this set was getting half a beer from Tuomas (the can has most likely been thrown out at this point cause my dumbass self left it at the fucking hotel), and hearing "Over the Hills and Far Away" as the closer. I must say I did enjoy this performance immensely. Emppu is fucking hilarious when he throws picks into the crowd. You'd have to see the look on his face.

Nightwish Pictures
Nighwish 1
Nighwish 2
Nighwish 3
Nighwish 4
Nighwish 5
Nighwish 6
Nighwish 7
Nighwish 8
Nighwish 9
Nighwish 10
Nighwish 11
Nighwish 12
Nighwish 13

And then there was SyX ... who was pretty ok, Goltark and I made the mistake of sitting in seats paralell to the speakers. my ears were fine until then. Dumb dumb dumb. As always, when I see them live, this being time #2, their guitar and drumwork leave me incredibly impressed. Love them live, hate them on CD. They played oddesy or whatever too, it was pretty sweet. Too bad I nearly feel asleep. No pics. =/

MetalWolf · Post by **MetalWolf** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 12:37 am

Man I am so jealous of you, barelly any good bands come around where I live (Alberta, Canada). How come you get to meet all the good rock stars, you got "connections" back stage. The only famous people I ever got to meet were Kevin Nash and Shawn Micheals (wrestlers).

nailz · Post by **nailz** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:39 am

because I'm willing to drive 14 hours out of my way to see bands I like, and good things happen to those kinds of people.

I met Tuomas quite by chance, and Blind Guardian because I stuck around an hour after their show. Mercenary was at a signing table. See the trick to meeting bands is to go to the shows.

MetalWolf · Post by **MetalWolf** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 9:55 am

I am broke half the time to drive from Fort Mac to Toronto, last time I did that was for AC/DC when I thought they were not going to go to Edmonton on their tour. It costed around 1000 or 2000 dollars for air fare,hotel and such. As for driving that would take me a week to get there and nearly the same money spent gas wise. However Vancouver is not tha far from Alberta but Iced Earth cancelled their last show there at Vancouver. I dont even think Blind Guardian, Nightwish, Judas Priest and such go to those cities all that much except maybe motorhead :(
I guess I will have to wait to see if they do tour over there or I just have bad luck and timing with concerts.

nailz · Post by **nailz** » Tue Sep 09, 2003 3:28 pm

yah, that does suck, actually. sorry to hear. =\

Jace Tsunami · Post by **Jace Tsunami** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:51 am

nailz1000 wrote:because I'm willing to drive 14 hours out of my way to see bands I like, and good things happen to those kinds of people.

I met Tuomas quite by chance, and Blind Guardian because I stuck around an hour after their show. Mercenary was at a signing table. See the trick to meeting bands is to go to the shows.

Yeah, driving often leads to good things. And good pics Nailz, being that close is rad isn't it?

And on the meeting bands, definetly. Go to their shows, best way.

nailz · Post by **nailz** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 11:07 pm

yes it does, and i doubt i'll be attending then. =/

ON WITH DAY 2!!!

Ok, so we get back to the hotel after Symphony X, and find NeoGohan and this chick he brought stole our second room, leaving me, curufin, and Goltark in the other room (which was fine, cause wtf, they sucked anyway. lol) ... But whatever. We were pretty freaken beat from the long day, so we each had a beer and drifted off to sleep at about 4am. Set a wakeup call for 9am to get free breakfast, and all 3 of us decided sleep would be better. Neo came by to wake us up at 12 to see if we wanted to get going, but none of us wanted to move. So we slept and didn't get back out until about 4pm. Got back into the venue, and me, Curufin, and Goltark decided to hit up some vendors (me mostly) .. so we walked around for a bit, me looking for a Mercenary shirt.. several vendors looked at me funny when I asked.

Enter The End Records... and Hurrah! They had one! So I scored a Mercenary Shirt, and couldn't buy a poster as they had sold out. (wow, for a band that wasn't the popular choice for coming to this thing, they sure did move some merchandise.) .. Good stuff. After getting situated in our seats (we opted to NOT stand today, as none of us had more than a passing interest for most of the bands up).

Pagan's Mind was first to take the stage, and let me tell you I was none too pleased with having to sit through them at all, having heard their Infinity Devine CD.. which, um, well, SUCKED. Their vocalist is brutal. I tried to listen to it on the way down to Atlanta, and turned it off after 30 seconds. Not good. So whatever. They open with Osiris Eyes (amazing song) and you can just tell they're not going to be nearly as annoying as they are on CD. Thank god for drowning out vocals at concerts. So they're actually not too bad.

Next up was Secret Sphere. Wow, was this guy a flamer. Came out with an american flag on his right arm, and an italian flag on his left. Meh, I didn't really pay much attention to these guys, but they just didn't do much. There was a chick dancing around like she was high on stage with the lyrics in front of her. She'd do her little backing vocals and then dance like a fool right off stage. I mean, no interaction at ALL between band members either. They TRIED to get some energy from the crowd, but they just werent very good. The nights Valden Pas or whatever.

After SS, Circle II Circle came up. I had no idea the lead singer had been in Savatage, so it was kind of cool of them to break out into some Savatage stuff, even had the old keyboardist with them. his name fails me. Alas, I was planning on leaving this set early to go catch the Mercenary autograph session, but they put on such an amazing set, that I was compelled to stay. I actually managed to get some pictures of these guys too. I think half the reason I was so into them was because of what their rythem guitarist was wearing.

Circle II Circle 1
Circle II Circle 2
Circle II Circle 3
Circle II Circle 4
Circle II Circle 5
Circle II Circle 6
Circle II Circle 7

Good stuff, very good stuff. I enjoyed the hell out of them.

Next up was the nights first headliner: Evergrey. I had pretty high expectations from them, considering they seem to be kind of popular and all. I must say not only did they not dissapoint, they really rocked the house. From their opening to their closing, they made price of admission for the second day worth it. They finished the night with Solitude Within, which is their best song, I think. I didn't really know any others, but they managed to headbang a lot. They have hella hair. heh. I think they could possibly be the hardest rockers there. After they left the stage, about half the crowd followed suit, probably near to 400 people left before Rage. I was considering it, because i was holding a bag with 3 cds, 4 shirts, my camera, and my mercenary setlist, as well as having a huge ass poster in my other hand.

Alas, I stayed for 3 Rage songs, as we made our way down to the crowd to meet up with Majin_Kenshin. He was heavy into Rage. I'd have liked to stay for more, but them taking an extra 1/2 hour to just set up kind of urked me, being tired and all, So there I am, half hoping Rage sucks so I can just leave and not care about missing them. So what do they do? They come out and blow me away with their first song. Ok, a fluke. Then they blew me away with their second song. WHAT THE FUCK. Assholes. I probably would have stayed longer if Goltark didn't want to get moving so we could get home...and if this dude didn't cram his way in front of me with long hair and start headbanging. I almost decked him. Alas, I said my goodbyes to Majin and OFTHEBORG (oh, I forgot to mention, I met him too) ... and Curufin, Goltark and Myself wandered back to the hotel, where pictures were taken. Apparently, Rage did indeed kick ass.

And then we left, and thus ends our progpower adventures. Here's some pics we took.

Goltark, Curufin, and together for a "THAT was an AWESOME weekend" shot.
Curufin and I together for a "you rock... no, you rock" shot.
Curufin For a "nice to meet you" shot.
NeoGohan for a "nice to meet you" shot
Some girl who didn't like beer (wtf) for a "nice to meet you" shot.
Curufin for a "hey lets fuck with his camera while he goes to get beer!" shot.
Curufin's ASS for a "hey lets do our best impression of goats!" shot.
It's a spoon. hanging off the stage.. WTF?
Ok, this is just stupid. This is why I hate Kentucky.

rubyeye · Post by **rubyeye** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 8:38 pm

Well after reading the ProgPower Forum and your experience it sounds like it was generally an ok show.
Apparently NIGHTWISH was the real headliner but it just seemed that most people just were not "into" it because of one reason or another (including some bands).

Sound problems abound.

VANDEN PLAS and PAGAN'S MIND were the others I was curious about *live* and it seems that it really depended where you were sitting which made a difference in how good or bad they sounded, I guess.

But really, opinions were literally all over the place - some people thought some bands were ok, others thought they were crap, and so forth.

Ah, well, I'll just wait until ProgPower gets video clips online.

nailz · Post by **nailz** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 9:51 pm

Yah, I guess... I dunno, I had a blast, and it did seem like a lot of people were into it. I think the people were generally into nightwish, but who knows. I hope they put a mercenary clip up.

-anvanya- · Post by **-anvanya-** » Mon Oct 20, 2003 10:23 am

hey!! I'm kinda new here. But i wanted to click on the nightwish pictures. But they don't work!!! I would really like to see them...
Me being the nightiwish fan i am.