ProgDay 2024

I hope/wish that these return, and that they start getting more attention ... however, in America, these are a problem due to the large distances, and the costs involved. I'm in Portland, and could make it to Seattle, but in my age, SF/LA would require that tuna boat flight that I tend to not enjoy much, specially the LAX runways which are horrible and probably have not been done in many years and feel like cobblestone roads!

The better issue is to sell streaming ... which has the bad rap that folks think it will be copied and will hurt the show ... this can easily be solved by having a CD released with it after the show, although many bands might not like it (usually the fatter ones!!!), but c'mon ... in the end, these bands are preventing these shows from coming alive.

The future, like it or not, is in streaming ... and for "progressive" to get a leg up on it, they need to start now, not after everyone else. All it takes is one band or two to come out of it really well, and strong, and the rest is history ... but the fear, is just that ... fear ... you have nothing to fear but the fear itself.

Sadly, this won't happen in my lifetime ... and all it shows is the hard hold that record/music companies have over the majority of the music delivery ... making sure folks don't do something that would otherwise destroy their numbers even more. I bet they dream of a Swift like show getting them millions, like Springsteen or the Stones can!

I imagine that a show would sell 4k, maybe 5k tickets, and within a streaming format you could get 5 to 10 more times that amount the world over ... and there is enough security minded work that can help folks not steal the material ... but in all honesty, I don't think the time of the bootleg is returning any time soon ... and stealing a show and then putting it up somewhere is gonna get those folks in legal trouble, since a tube or other site would not be stupid enough to put someone's video without having enough identifying information on the poster for legal reasons. You really think that anyone is gonna try to put up some Swift material somewhere? Think again! There are sharks armed and ready for that one!

The only thing I don't want to see, is a show like the 1999 SF Progressive Music Show which I bet Sean Ahearn (Pangea Music) lost more than likely around/over 100K ... and this was in 1999. Bad for the fans all around ... horrible in fact ... but he had the gumption of bringing MAGMA to America for the first time, not to mention a couple of other bands.

Now I'm kind of out of touch with current trends in prog, and have young children so traveling without them is hard. But I wonder if one of these years I'll get to finally go and experience it ... maybe the kids will even come with, who knows. Although their tastes have not leant towards prog yet (neither away, they're young enough thankfully that they mostly listen to whatever I put on)