ProgPower: Damnation Angels, Myrath, and Xandria (Friday)

[rowyn]

We got up early for breakfast, went back to sleep, got up for orientation, went back to sleep, then got up for the 2PM show. We met Alinsa's friends Nikita and Elizabeth in the hotel lobby, so were a little late for Damnation Angels. And then a little later still because we ran into Dennis outside the theater and stopped to chat ("Guys! Good to see you!" *hugs us both*)

Damnation Angels drew an impressive crowd for the hour -- the theater looked more crowded for them than it had been for Rhapsody, the previous night's headliner. Centerstage, where the festival is held, is a small theater with stadium seating and a spacious floor area. The floor is often packed while there are still plenty of empty seats, as the people who want to be nearer to the band, or stand and bounce through the show (it's too packed for much in the way of dancing) will go down to the floor.

Damnation Angels sounded pretty good, but I do not remember any details beyond "liked it". I started writing this during the next band, Myrath, as my ability to focus on new music waned. We stayed through Xandria (estrogen! That band has a female lead singer, and was the first person not male to perform thus far) then took a break. I was wearing a fashion corset** for the corset picture that was taken after Xandria's set. (I think the purpose of this shoot is to show that there are, in fact, women at the show. The attendees are not quite as overwhelmingly white & male as the acts, but I'd estimate 80-90% men and 95-99% white.) Then we went with Elizabeth and Nikita to get food. We walk up a block -- none of us particularly wanted to go far -- and they got subs while I got a lasagna from the pizza/italian place next door. We chatted for a bit, then parted ways: they wanted to get back in time to catch Ashes of Ares. We'd already missed Wolverine.
** Meaning "has plastic boning that is totally not up to the task of supporting my chest so I need to wear it over a shirt & bra"

Alinsa and I headed back to the hotel for various errands. Now that the shoot was over, I wanted to take off the corset. Also, koogrr was going to be driving in from a job site in Savannah, Georgia, and I wanted the hotel to know to give him a key, in case he couldn't reach us when he arrived for some reason. In addition, we had some leftovers from dinner to drop off, and I wanted to adjust my earplugs. Alinsa had bought me fancy musician's earplugs. This doesn't just make the rock-concert music less loud, but actually gets rid of much of the distorted quality that the high-volume imparts. I'd noticed that the singers still had that too-loud-distorted quality, though, so I wanted to adjust the earplugs to give more dampening and see if that helped. It even did, so that was pretty neat.

Once in the room, the bed called to me, so I lay down for a couple of hours. I slept through Ashes of Ares, but got back to the theater in time to catch part of Soilwork, the second-to-last act of the day. They had the instruments cranked up to 11 and the singer was barely audible over it. Which sounded all right (I haven't been able to understand any singer the entire show so far anyway) but I did end up working on this some more during that, so flagging a bit.

After Soilwork, Glenn, the ProgPower USA organizer, spoke for a few minutes. "Before I get on to the previews for next year's ProgPower, I want to say that we just had the nicest mosh pit ever here. They were down here moshing, and one guy lost his glasses. The whole group stopped moshing, got out a flashlight, found the guy's glasses, got them back to him, and then went back to slamming the shit out of each other."

Next Year's ProgPower will have Jon Olivia's Pain as one of the headliners. Jon Olivia was the lead singer for Savatage before Zak Stevens, and his group will be playing all of "Streets" next year, which should make for a great show -- "Streets" is a story album, and I think those are particularly fun played live and in full.

During the break, we picked up a bottle of water and Diet Pepsi from the VIP bar. As we were walking back to our seats, I looked at my cup of Diet Pepsi. "I'm in Atlanta. How is it I can even get a Pepsi here, never mind have to?"

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Does this thing come to Houston? I'm envious and I like prog rock.

[rowyn]

It's an Atlanta-only event, I'm afraid. The demographics are weird -- it's a pretty small event, maybe 1000 people? But the majority, 70-80%, are NOT local. People come from all over the US to attend it. It really surprises me, suggesting that prog fans are a small but dedicated lot. I am amazed that more locals don't come!

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

The whole idea of wearing earplugs at a concert is just bizarre. Why have the music so loud that people need earplugs?

Actually, I think only one concert (out of... four? five?) that I've been to was loud enough to need earplugs. And I didn't have them. I was pretty much deaf the next day.

[rowyn]

At most rock concerts, the idea is that you should be able to feel the vibrations of the music, especially the bass/drums. To get that effect, the music needs to be too loud to listen to comfortably. Hence, earplugs. It's pretty weird and roundabout, but it does have a certain reasoning to it.

It really did surprise me that the music sounded not just quieter but BETTER -- clearer, more distinct, less distorted -- with musician-quality earplugs in. Weird.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Also, much like it is with temperature and clothing -- you can always wear earplugs to turn the music down, but there's no way to turn it up if it's too quiet.

Rock/metal concerts, for whatever reason, tend to be fairly active with 'audience participation' (dancing, hopping, throwing horns, singing, cheering, yelling)... I guess it makes sense, given that the music tends to be fairly high-energy. It's not a "sit quietly in your seat and listen" type of thing like a symphony, so there's a lot people making noise involved. And the last thing you want is for folks cheering or singing along next to you to drown out the actual music!

(Though, how to know the audience is having a really good time: The audience singing along as a whole drowns out the music. I've had a couple of just amazing concert moments like that, where the entire audience was just kind of... resonating... with the music.)

There is, as Rowyn notes, also an element of wanting to be able to "feel" the music. I'm not personally real hot on being thumped around by the kick drums (though there are some fast double-foot patterns that are just awesome), but I do so much love shows where you get to the climax of a song and they hit one long, heavy bass note with a really thick chord layered on top of it -- something that you can really feel -- It makes me want to throw my head back, spread my arms, and just... absorb the moment. Those moments are rare, but they stick in my memories better than any other parts of all the concerts I've attended.

The good news is that good musician's earplugs are pretty inexpensive and last a long time -- the pair Rowyn ended up using were ~$25 and will probably last her forever. My backup-backup-pair (which I ended up giving to koogrr) was $12. And, as she notes, actually make the music sound better.

[rowyn]

You made that a reply to me and not Terry, making it a little odd to talk about me in the third-person. :)

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

...oops.

[rowyn]

IIRC, I've been to two concerts (Suzanne Vega and Laurie Anderson) where I didn't need earplugs, and several before ProgPower where I did (Queensyrche, Jethro Tull, Edie Brickell, Rush twice).

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

Damnation Angels drew an impressive crowd for the hour They did! Usually the earlier acts have a smaller draw and get bigger throughout the day (like any concert, save the headliners for last), and many years the theatre seems half-empty for the first act or two... not this year. The place seemed to stay pretty packed for the entire day! I was impressed. Though much like Rowyn, I don't remember much about them, beyond "well, they seemed fun."

Myrath seemed to be the crowd favorite for the entire show -- I've seen comment after comment in various places on just how much people were surprised by them and loved them. I was, and I did! They do what they classify as "oriental metal" and certainly have a lot of that type of influence in their music. And their singer is really cute! Piccie (click through for more Myrath pics):



Xandria was fun, mostly because I have a soft spot for female-fronted metal. They are, truthfully, not one of my favorite metal acts in general, but I'm still quite happy to listen and take pics! Here is my gallery for those.

Corset pic!



(Rowyn is on the left, a couple of people up from the front)

[Soilwork] had the instruments cranked up to 11 Yeah, these guys were unreasonably loud -- I suspect they used their own sound tech. Most bands let the house sound guy (who has been doing the same venue for ~20 years, and is quite good at it) do the sound, and it sounds great, but some bands just don't want to play that game, and they always end up way too loud. I wish they'd stop it!

[rowyn]

I didn't mind the volume for Soilwork. They weren't any more deafening than any other band, singer was just harder to make out. I figured that was the sound they were looking for. More on the power-metal side of it or however you want to describe it. Not my favorite act, but changing the mix wasn't going to change that.

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

It was actually uncomfortable for me -- at that point, your earplugs actually had a good bit more attenuation than mine. At least it wasn't a band-provided sound guy doing that to a band I really liked -- I've had that happen before, too. The first time I saw Symphony X there, actually. That one might have actually gone to 12!