Prog Rock Festivals for Kayo Dot?

Toby, so glad to have you onboard!

We'd love to see you in Norway, though unfortunately there are no sizable prog festivals around. Does it have to be a prog rock festival though? Øyafestivalen (www.oyafestivalen.com) is Norway's largest and most progressive in the wide sense of the word, has tons of bands from a wide range of genres, and is usually very open towards prog- and experimental bands. Bit late for this year's festival perhaps, but I know they are not finished with their booking, so give it a try!

Sweden Rock Festival (www.swedenrock.com) is another festival which is mainly aiming wider than prog but still including a lot of prog rock acts. Good luck, hope to see you on one of them!

(If you're interested in playing smaller venues in Oslo, I might be able to give you a couple of advice too.)

Hi Toby,

Nice to have you around! Can't wait to get my Coyote preorder, too

I'll drop a couple of suggestions for Paris/France.

First, you might be interested in doing a solo show in Paris. There aren't huge crowds for contemporary experimental rock concerts, but there is a small and steady public going to such events, at the smaller venues. I've seen Tortoise gathering about 700 people at L'Alhambra (seems like their website is only in French: http://www.alhambra-paris.com/), Jaga Jazzist filling the Cafe de la Danse with about 400 people (http://www.cafedeladanse.com/node/7), or Ulver bringing about 1000 people at the Glazart (but this is a bigger venue and they're not relevant because almost all the audience consisted of metalheads).

There are many other such venues where during this season we had Mono, Russian Circles, Battles, Do Make Say Think, A Silver Mt Zion,, etc. If interested, I can search for the info of these venues.

Also, there is a small club in Paris called Le Triton who does a "progressive festival" called Les Tritonales each June. The "festival" means that they have a small place (for maximum 200 people) and there are solo concerts all weekends during that month. Last year they had bands like Magma, Univers Zero, Aranis, etc. They are really pro; they also have recording studios, all facilities for filming, record label, etc. Here is this years' line-up: http://www.letriton.com/Temps%20forts/tritonales2010.html

In southern France there is also the RIO festival, where they are also interested in contemporary bands. This year they're having Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, for example. Here is their English website: http://www.rocktime.org/rio/accueileng.html This would have been my first recommendation but the line-up seems to be pretty finalized. But do send them a proposal!

La Route du Rock is a indie/epxerimental festival in western France, by the Ocean. They also do booking for bands so who knows... They have summer sessions and winter sessions; last summer I wanted to go and see Tortoise, but didn't so I can't tell how it was like. Here's the English website: http://www.laroutedurock.com/pages/english.htm The 2010 summer line-up is not announced yet!


If you plan to go further to the East, I would recommend Budapest (Hungary), there are tons of experimental events there. I would recommend Diesel Club (http://www.dieselclub.hu/?p=4), West Balkan (http://www.west-balkan.com/index.php?&el_mcal_month=4&el_mcal_year=2010) or Tuzrakter (http://tuzraktar.hu/). For Bucharest (Romania) I would recommend Club Control (http://www.control-club.ro/); they have bands like Lydia Lunch, Blurt, Legendary Pink Dots or Ken Vandermark & Paal Nilssen-Love.

I was thinking the same thing about NEARfest, if not this year then maybe next year? It might be too late now...

In the USA you will get your most bang for your buck with these festivals:

Edited by Garion81 - April 14 2010 at 17:39

Hey Toby,

So I heard you're in Romania right now playing bass for Secret Chiefs. That's awesome! Let us know how it was.