PROCKFEST - Bünde/Germany - November 2006

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   The first day:

Abarax

I did not like that band, in my opinion each song sounded the same
way and because of that I went out in the middle of their set to buy
some prog CD's at the two great CD stands. What I realized while
watching them was, that the entire band was not really moving, for
example the two singers were standing behind the microphone and turned
their back to the public and did not move. You could feel that the band
members (especially the younger ones) were very excited. However, I
think they have potential, give them 2 or 3 more years and they will
find their own, unique sound.

Riverside

A pretty good band was the polish group called Riverside.
I have never heard anything about them and I have to admit that I was
really surprised how good they are! They tend to be prog metal I think,
some shouting was in their music, they were rocking the public. What
sucked was that some idiotic guys in the public were shouting some song
titles etc but that was of course not Riversides fault, they just said
"Ok, the next song is..." and ignored these guys. Like I said their
music was awesome and I really enjoyed the short keyboard solo that
reminded me a little bit on Emerson, Lake And Palmer. Great band!

The Flower Kings

The Flower Kings were the heyday of the evening, in my opinion.
They rocked the stage so much, I was freaking out whilst they played
songs like "I Am The Sun (Part One)" or "Back In The World Of
Adventures". These guys are outstanding musicians, you could feel that
right from the beginning until the end. Roines solos really hooked me
out of my shoes, the drum solo was great, the same thing with the
awesome, extremely fast bass solo. Sometimes you could clearly hear
where they have their roots: they sometimes really sounded a bit like
Yes. Wow, what a band!

The second day:

Flamborough Head

Flamborough Head were convincing with beautiful flute and keyboard parts, they often reminded me on such bands like Wobbler or Anglagard,
though they have their own style. The only thing I did not like that
much, was the lead singer's female voice (though she sang really good,
but I can not really stand female voices in rock music). I'll alaways
remind Flamborough Head as a band which plays beautiful medieval and dreamy music.

The Watch

The Watch was definately the best band of the entire festival,
if you ask me. They played prog that sounded like Genesis, the
lead-singer seems to have the same voice as Genesis' Peter Gabriel
and the music was as complex as the Genesis stuff. We heard long songs,
interesting lyrics and an outstanding keyboard solo that could have
been played by the keyboard legend Keith Emerson. The lead singer changed his clothes in the middle of the set and he was moving and behaving like Peter Gabriel. You could even hear some Steve Hackett-solos
here. Wow! As the band had finished their set they had to come back on
stage again for two times because everybody wanted to hear them again.
I'll definately buy both of their albums in the next time... 

Pendragon

The best band was followed by the worst band. Really, I don't know why
this band calls itself prog, it was symphonic pop and sometimes it was
not even symphonic. Only because they may have some songs which are
longer than 10 minutes in their set it does not mean that they play
progressive rock. However, I was leaving after the first four or five
songs because they bored me to death. Pretty disappointing, isn't it?

All in all the Prockfest was great and it would be a pleasure to see it happening again in the next year! 