Can you remember the first ever prog rock band you

Rush - A Farewell to Kings.

David_D wrote: enigmatic wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: omphaloskepsis wrote: Yes, I can remember. Yes, I can remember too. It was The Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed, long before I realised it's the very first Symphonic Prog album about fifty years in the future.  Days of Future Passed is NOT symphonic prog. There is nothing symphonic about this album. Why can't you read my post in latest David's post? Can't you guys get the facts straight? London Festival Orchestra and members of Moody Blues were never in the recording studio together. This is nothing but bunch of pop-songs mixed with classical interludes played by symphonic orchestra. The orchestra and the band never played together. The classical pieces were arranged by Peter Knight, the orchestra's conductor. Moody Blues was never part of progressive rock movement. No reason to be so authoritarian.

Edited by I prophesy disaster - January 20 2023 at 13:01

Greenmist wrote: Yeyyyyy nice one.    I know that Threshold did not play at that years Prog Powerfest, but the festival still introduced me to them, cause the festival gave us goodybags didnt they?, and in that bag were some promo CD's.   Thresholds song Slipstream which was on one of the promo CD's totally stood out from all the other songs.  That same year i checked out some more Threshold songs on their Myspace page, checked out their songs on their page on here, Progressive Archives, back when the site had flash players on where you could stream songs, and after that the rest was history.  16 years later and all their albums in my collection.   I also have 1 album by Dreamscape and 2 albums by Haggard. Kamelot were the band that got the most crowd attendance that day, unfortunately i had to leave before Jon Oliva's performance was over, because i was just too tired to stay anymore :-(  .  Jon Oliva walked right past me in the entrance way of the building, looking like he had a painful foot.  Then later on on stage he explained that he fell off the tour bus and injured his foot, and that it was probably his brothers ghost that pushed him off lol. That was also the last year that festival ran in the UK, so it was my first and last.

Anyone who wants to separate the Moodies from the progressive genre just isn't living in reality. Progressive rock is a very wide umbrella folks. At the very least DOFP was proto-symph prog and the Moody Blues themselves were also proto-prog/ proto-symph prog. It's a very good album regardless of what you want to call it. Progarchives calls them crossover prog so I suppose they have the last word. They might be the first crossover prog band.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - January 20 2023 at 22:09

Mine was Genesis when my sister borrowed a copy of Nursery Cryme from a friend of hers. The second LP I ever bought was Genesis Live which I think was a budget £1.99 at the time.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Anyone who wants to separate the Moodies from the progressive genre just isn't living in reality. Progressive rock is a very wide umbrella folks. At the very least DOFP was proto-symph prog and the Moody Blues themselves were also proto-prog/ proto-symph prog. It's a very good album regardless of what you want to call it. Progarchives calls them crossover prog so I suppose they have the last word. They might be the first crossover prog band.

That's a hard one. It depends what your definition of "like" is, and how loosely you want to define prog as.

I suppose I can say Pink Floyd was my first exposure to prog, through my father playing it in the car as a child, but nowadays I dislike them for a plethora of reasons (some of which is why I refuse to listen to them), and back then I wouldn't say I really like them either. I mean the Beatles had their proggy moments, and they were the guest band I really ever got into (normie moment I know). Kansas and Boston, on the other hand, are bands I've had on regular play since 2011 (when I was 13 y/o, btw) and I do like them, but I've always been rather a casual listener of them. Then in high school, I began listening to early Queen and Metallica. I would say they're the first bands that got me into the realm of prog. Of course there were other prog singles I liked them, too, such as Avenged Sevenfold's "Save Me" and Symphony X's "The End of Innocence" - those are probably the first two prog songs I truly, actively liked that were not hand-me-downs from my father.

Starting at university, one of my dormmates was heavily into Rush and he got me into Rush, too. Around this time I purchased a turntable, and one of my first albums was Avenged Sevenfold's "The Stage." Rush is how I actively knew about what prog was, and I'd say the A7X was my gateway into the genre. A few weeks later, I discovered Tool (who in retrospect I really wouldn't call "prog" tbh), which is what REALLY got me interested in the prog scene. Later that year I found Symphony X's album "V - the New Mythology Suite," and from there, there was no looking back.

So I'd say my answer is either Kansas, Queen/Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, Rush, Tool, or Symphony X.

I guess the proper answer is Kansas. They were the first.

Edited by bardberic - January 21 2023 at 13:28

Genesis : Foxtrot

Psychedelic Paul wrote: I agree with both of your definitions:- Proto Symphonic Crossover Prog sounds like the ideal all-encompassing genre to describe The Magnificent Moodies and it could equally apply to Procol Harum too.

Paul - It's settled then, Days of Future Passed is a proto-symphinic rock album. I can live with that. My first prog-rock band that I got into their music was Argent, and I am claiming that they are one of those true, real, full blown progressive rock bands. Each Argent's album has few compositions written by Rod Argent that can be considered as progressive rock. Russ Ballard's songs, not necessarily prog. That was probably in early 1972. My first "true" progressive rock band was Genesis after hearing for the first time "Nursery Cryme" few months later. I heard few other prog-rock albums before that, ITCOTCK, debut ELP, Yes, but I was too young to understand them.

Edited by enigmatic - January 22 2023 at 12:24