ProgNation 2009 comments...

Yeah, I was in the show in Finland.

Bigelf was okay and their stage presence was pretty OK... sounds too, but the music was a little shallow and the songs a little too reminiscent to each other. And yeah, they're a half-Finnish band too. <3

Opeth was better musically (and they opened with Windowpane which is from the clean album, Damnation, the only one I own from 'em) but their mixing just sucked. Seriously, what the heck?! The bass drum was just overwhelming and in the double bass parts I heard nothing else than the bass drums, bleh. And then they had this joke "We probably suck" that Åkerfeldt repeated just too many times even though for the first time it was ok.

And Dream Theater. Now that show was awesome! The stage presence was just awesome, especially LaBrie's. Those rock gestures like throwing the mic stand upside-down etc. were just so cool :D And the singing was decent as well even though there were some worse parts, too. But the setlist was pretty dull if you compare to, for example, the Clearwater show Plankwater talked about in the first page.

You know, we had this:

A Nightmare to Remember
A Rite of Passage
Hollow Years
Erotomania
Voices
Forsaken
The Spirit Carries On
As I Am

Encore:

Count of Tuscany

So, yeah. A Nightmare to Remember was of course awesome even though Portnoy sang in it. Rite of Passage was awesome aswell and the chorus also got the whole audience singing. And the solo-part was brilliant and it even had the iPhone-solo. :)

Hollow Years had a solo fulled with FEELING (;P) as an intro to Hollow Years, which by the way worked very well live even though I've not really sunk into it's studio version.

Erotomania was pretty cool but I'd probably have chosen something else from Awake, but well, the next song was Voices from Awake, so it's ok, I guess. These songs though are probably the 2 least listened songs for me from Awake so... :D Forsaken worked well live even though it isn't one of the best songs of DT... Another sing-along song. :)

Then the Spirit Carries On. Worked very well live and got the audience to sing, again. :) Was very emotional, I think.

Then As I Am, err. Probably the worst song on Train of Thought but again worked well live. I would have chosen something else from ToT, still.

And Count of Tuscany as an encore was very fun. :)



Edited by Tzibo - September 26 2009 at 10:27

Glad you had a nice time! I'm counting now - 2 days left and I'll see them 

Just got backfrom the Glasgow gig, and spending 2 hours in the freezing cold hanging out with Bigelf and Unexpect.  Really great people

For prog fans, the Opeth album to get it the newest, Watershed. Their album Damnation is completely without growled vocals and no big crunchy guitars....basically a Camel-like outing. They've been playing at least one song off of each during most sets.

Roj M30 wrote: I was at the Manchester gig too, and what a gig it was .  Having read the setlists from the earlier gigs I'm so glad they played the set I heard/saw in Manchester rather than the ones from earlier in the tour.   I'm not absolutely certain of the exact order, but these were the songs and I think the order was:-   A Nightmare To Remember A Rite Of Passage Rudess Keyboard Solo Sacrificed Sons Wither The Dance Of Eternity One Last Time The Spirit Carries On In The Name Of God ---------------------------- Count Of Tuscany   Fantastic gig it was too.  The sound was absolutely perfect and the band were in awesome form.  This was the third time I've seen DT this year, and it was easily the best show of the three.   I'd never heard a note of Opeth previously, but I was very impressed and will be investing in some of theirs soonis.  Any recommendations for a good place to start with Opeth?

I think the Glasgow gig went something like this:


EDIT:  DT posted the setlist on the Progressive Nation website.  Corrected the order now


Edited by Repner - October 12 2009 at 11:59

Yeah, the Manchester gig was terrific, with both DT and Opeth on fantastic form. Opeth opened with 'Windowpane', and amongst their numbers were 'Harlequin Forest', 'The Lotus Eater' and 'Hex Omega' to close. One can never truly mentally prepare beforehand for such accomplished performances, in terms of technicality, and beyond. The bliss continued the following day when I caught Porcupine Tree in Bristol, but that's another story. 

^^

Sweet. I'm unfamiliar with the other two bands, and unfortunately I missed their performances because of the timings for my meet and greet, (which was a very surreal experience) but I certainly hope to acquaint to myself with their work.

Zitro wrote: The setlist seems much better than in 2008. There's barely any "random" average songs, and I hope they would play "Nightmare" and "Tuscany" in Boston. I'm also excited to see Zappa plays Zappa and Bigelf. Bigelf reminds me of the classic rock era.

I know what you mean.  The the Glasgow gig in 2007 they didn't play ANY songs from any of the albums that came before Scenes From A Memory, and even then only one song from that was played.   Not including the medley at the end of course.

This years setlist was amazing, and the performance was spot on.  One of LaBries good nights