Aug042009
Progressive Nation ’09 at Merriweather – a Review
Filed under Music by Kim at 2:14 pm on Aug 04 2009
I tend to not like surprises. There is one context, however, in which I love them, and that is the musical context! So when I bought myself tickets for this show, I knew I was in for some. I don’t know Dream Theater. My familiarity with the works of Frank Zappa are limited to a single listen to Hot Rats and seeing him on the Monkees as a kid. Queensryche? You mean those Silent Lucidity guys? I know. Foul ignorance.
So I’ve been bent on listening to new things and going to lots of festivals where I’ll be exposed to a breadth of prog diversity. Of course then the one band I love dropped off the tour. So, more surprises!
I still bitterly regret that Beardfish couldn’t come on this tour, but the most pleasant surprise of the night was one of the replacement bands: Bigelf. I knew when they rollllled that Mellotron on stage that I was going to be a happy camper. They are a west coast band who have apparently been around for over a decade. My favorite track from their set was called Neuropsychopathic Eye, which doesn’t even appear to be on their studio albums. Just my luck. But that ought to give you an idea of what you’re in for with this band.
Since I couldn’t bring in my fancy camera, and because I’m dutiful and buy seats when they go on sale we were sitting at the back, you will have to be satisfied with this LED-jumbotron picture of the singer from Bigelf sporting his mastery of two giant keyboards. (Some friends waited until the day before to buy tickets – and got 3rd row center. Sigh.)
That was not the only treat in store for me though. I enjoyed comparative newbie openers Scale the Summit but they lacked one thing that I always prefer – vocals. Their drummer was pretty amazing, clearly very talented. Melodic metal fans attending this show (who aren’t overly attached to lyrics & vocals like me) will be pleased if they show up early and catch those guys.
In between sets they allow you to text stuff to the LED-Jumbotron. My favorite of the night was “Scream if you are a lady and you didn’t come here because your boyfriend made you.” My boyfriend refused to even go! I screamed like a screaming thing and the teenagers in front of us cringed like their overly-youth-identified aunt was too far into her cups. I don’t care though because those kids have good taste in music!
Queensryche played a weird set. (They were only on the bill for this one date, for whatever reason.) It was weird for me in that their latest album, American Soldier, is based on interviews with soldiers across half a century. It was hard to understand the lyrics in the venue and with something like a concept album I really want to evaluate and think about what it means. I enjoyed some of the songs more than others. The straight-up metal nature of it is less interesting to me than some of the other bands on the lineup. They got me, however, with “Home Again” – Geoff Tate’s daughter Emily came out and sang a duet with her father about soldiers coming home – and there was a montage of just that on the giant LED screens. But not a single female soldier in the montage which was disappointing. Nevertheless, I can’t handle that stuff, coming to the experience with my own deeply embedded memories of my dad leaving on ships and coming home on ships. So I wept. At a metal show.
But the real prize, the best experience of the night, came from Zappa Plays Zappa. Holy Crap. I hope it’s adequate for me to say that while I saw 5 bands Saturday, one of them alone was worth the price of the ticket. Two tickets maybe. Astounding musicianship.
We stuck around for the first two songs of Dream Theater’s set. I never quite got into Dream Theater, but in deference to Mike Portnoy putting this whole thing together, I wanted to try. My show buddy and I felt the same way: we love the music, but the vocals just grate. Maybe it was the live setting, I don’t know. I had major show fatigue at that point so we departed that we might dissect our experience over diner food.
1 Squeegiboon 04 Aug 2009 at 3:03 pm
I thought of you the other day when I heard a cover by The Bad Plus off their album Prog.
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Kim Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Oooh… jazz. That’s one musical adventure I’ve not entirely been able to enjoy yet. :-/
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2 Mariaon 04 Aug 2009 at 4:53 pm
I also do not care for songs with no vocals (categories like ambient and classical excluded). I still haven’t figured out why.
Good to hear that Queensryche is still around. And I would have screamed my goobery guts out at that message.
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Kim Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:25 am
I do like harp music without vocals… But I think that’s because I played the harp.
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Maria Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:32 am
Yeah, harp kinda falls under the classical/ambient exclusion for me. I can dig it with or without.
Maybe it’s a guitar thing? Or conditioning?
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3 Beckion 04 Aug 2009 at 7:21 pm
Excellent review, sounds like fun!
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4 Mariaon 04 Aug 2009 at 8:12 pm
Do you know the secret to not being dutiful and buying tix way ahead of time? For the Dethklok show at the patriot center, ticketmaster keeps insisting that I buy tickets for a section that’s directly *beside* the stage, which sucks. (We don’t want floor because we’re old.) Should I wait? How does it work? Waaah. (I’m a newbie at stadium tix, bleh. Help appreciated!)
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Kim Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:29 am
I really wish I knew the secret. Some people say that waiting until the day before or day of is good because they release really good seats in the front that had been reserved for gifts or promotions and were unused. Which is supposedly why when you dutifully go at 10am on the morning the tickets go on sale, you get fair-to-middlin’ seats – they simply aren’t selling those seats.
Of course, I can’t bring myself to take that risk with shows I really really want to go see, so then my option is to buy the “OK” tickets but possibly buy more tickets at the last minute and then not be able to unload mine.
Stadiums – I’ve only done a big stadium twice, for the Genesis shows, and IT WAS NERVE WRACKING. And my seats weren’t that great (until I won a contest… sigh)
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Maria Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Thanks for the info. I thought it might be something like that. I don’t think I’ll be crazy about stadium shows either.
If only they were offering some other crappy-to-ok seats, a small variety might be nice, instead of just the crappiest seats directly to one (and only one, argh) side of the stage.
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5 chibaon 05 Aug 2009 at 5:53 am
I was waiting for your show report. Still bummed that I didn’t get to go, although the family time was good, fun, and well spent.
I got to see ZPZ when they did their first spin around the country – not a HUGE FZ fan, but a GIANT DZ fan before that. I like Frank’s more commercial (i.e. listenable) stuff. Like you, I was absolutely blown away BLOWN AWAY I SAY at the sheer musicianship on stage for that show. Unbelievable. Plus, Steve Vai played a couple songs with them.
Speaking of Vai, due to a near-lifetime of listening to classical music, then getting into Joe Satriani and Vai in my younger rock days, I kinda dig instrumental music. I bet I would have liked that set.
Mellotron you say? SHEER JOY I SAY!! Not enough bands use those these days.
Next cool prog show, tix are on me.
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Kim Reply:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:30 am
You definitely would have liked that set. 😀
Looking forward to next time!!!
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6 Cynthia at A Shimmy In My Spiriton 15 Aug 2009 at 8:07 pm
Stopped by to say hello from the Photo BlogHers. I enjoyed reading your report about the convention. I did not go but plan to next year in NYC. I look forward to reading more of your words and looking at more of your photography.
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7 Mpomyon 31 Aug 2009 at 9:24 am
So glad you liked the ZPZ stuff. What a strange gig for Dweezil to spend years doing nothing but recreating his dad’s genius, instead of continuing the search for his own. Do you know of any place that the setlist is posted?
I’ve never liked Dream Theater, but my concert partner is a big fan, so we stayed. I can’t get enough Portnoy, but every time the singer would wander back on stage after a long instruymdental passage, I would groan internally. That guy’s just terrible. ‘Count of Tuscany’ is actually a pretty good song – it appeals to my ‘Spock’s Beard’ / ‘Transatlantic’ tendencies.
Beardfish was the main reason I got the tickets, so that’s a score left to settle. I’m jealous that you saw them at NearFest. What a great band.
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Kim Reply:
September 1st, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Hah! Yeah, we did not love the DT portion of the evening.
Since I go to see The Musical Box a lot, I guess I don’t consider pursueing a recreation of someone else’s musical genius a bad thing. I don’t know the setlist! if I hear about one I will let you know.
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8 mpomyon 02 Sep 2009 at 8:24 pm
Hey Kim!
I was just looking at the Beardfish forum and it may prove difficult to get ‘Please Be Quiet’ for the next few weeks, especially by download. Rikard is offering a workaround where you can make a deposit into his paypal account and he’ll email you a link for the album and artwork – same as you would get from iTunes. I was more than happy to pony up the $10. Here’s the link:
http://forum.spa-networks.co.uk/punforum/viewtopic.php?id=40&p=2
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