I had first heard about ProgPower way back in 2002, when I saw some discussions going on at the UltimateMetal.com forums about some festival being staged in Atlanta at a venue called the Earthlink Live. It was a fest that was going to bring over bands such as Blind Guardian, Gamma Ray, Silent Force, Angra, and Edguy to the states for their first North American appearances. It was seismic news in online power metal communities at the time, fragmented as they were, an announcement that caught everyone’s attention. I was broke back then, the idea of going to Atlanta for a metal concert was laughable, but despite my jealousy at everyone who got to attend, it gave me hope that it was going to germinate the possibility for power metal bands to begin to actually stage tours in this country. Blind Guardian was the first to make good on that with an announced North American tour in the fall of that year, but unfortunately for us Houston fans, a terrible venue here called Cardi’s 2000 couldn’t meet the technical rider requirements for the band and the show that was scheduled to be on Black Friday was cancelled that Wednesday before Thanksgiving to my utter devastation. I thought I missed my only chance, but the thing was, that tour did well enough to convince the bards to give it another run four years later where I did get to see them finally. Edguy went on their own attempt at a run in 2005 with Hammerfall, and although their trek avoided Texas, the point was that this this window was now being pushed open, a window that was first unlocked due to the efforts of a power/progressive metal fan named Glenn Harveston, a regular guy who loved this kinda music, and wanted to see these kinds of bands perform stateside, and decided to do something about it.
It would appear entirely coincidental that my first trip to ProgPower is Harveston’s last as its promoter. Yet maybe not, because it was his day three and four lineups that made me say yes when asked if I wanted an early bird ticket by my MSRcast co-host Cary the Metal Geek, who went to his first ProgPower last year. Specifically a lineup that featured Roy Khan playing a set of Kamelot classics with Seven Spires as his backing band, largely tunes from The Black Halo, a nod to Kamelot making their North American debut at ProgPower II; and Brainstorm, alumni from as early as 2004 in ProgPower V, and a band I’ve personally been a fan of since I dunno, 1998 when I first heard Unholy on HardRadio.com; and of course, The Gathering with their original lineup on their only American date for the 30th anniversary tour of Mandylion, a subgenre expanding classic album that I never dreamed of getting to hear live, let alone with the original lineup perfoming it. Nevermore dropping off day three for visa issues was a blow, but I had seen the band on the Dead Heart tour in December 2000 opening for In Flames, but I had never gotten to see Iced Earth with Matt Barlow, so I was even more fired up for Ashes of Ares doing The Dark Saga live in its entirety, an album of crucial importance in my metal upbringing. Getting to see Hammerfall once again was the whipped cream on this latte, and Seven Spires on day four was the cinnamon dusting on top of that.
I’ll leave it to other voices to talk about Harveston and this being his last run as the promoter, being a newcomer to the festival I didn’t have that emotional attachment that others who have been going for years have to him. At a certain point sometime during the fest when I was getting a drink in the lobby, I was unwittingly standing near him and someone in an Evergrey “Ever Glenn” t-shirt hollered his name aloud and walked up to him to say hello. He was perfectly pleasant to the guy but he couldn’t hide his discomfort at seeing his face on that shirt. Cary even told me that he got to see the moment the people working the merch booth first showed him the design, and his utter dismay upon seeing it. It made me like and respect him beyond just a name I’d been hearing for years online, particularly in that I suspect his uneasiness at being put on a pedestal comes from a place of wanting the bands to be the focus of attention, not himself. From the perspective of an outsider and distant observer viewing the discussions around ProgPower all these years past, you would hear his name mentioned so much in discussions around the festival and it sometimes felt a little too insider baseball. There is a distinct possibility I’ll be agitating many in saying that, but its just honesty from someone looking from the outside in, the same criticism can be leveled at a festival here in our own backyard in Hell’s Heroes, and it might be even more so in that case (another discussion for another time perhaps).
So moving on, because three paragraphs into this and maybe some of you are wondering if I’m burying the lede — did you have a good time at the festival Pigeon? Was it worth the expense and the effort? The answer is reservedly yes, I had a good time, at moments a very good time, though there’s potential for it to be a truly great time in the future should I return one day. Lets focus first on the most important things, the bands I wanted to see the most. Roy Khan with Seven Spires backing him more than lived up to the internal hype I’d billed in my head, hearing “Moonlight” sung live was something that I never expected to get treated to, and it was great to hear the other songs again. My memories of seeing him with Kamelot in 2007 in Houston are faded a bit, although I remember it feeling exhilarating, and the ProgPower set was no exception. I wish Adrienne Cowan’s backing and harmony vocals were louder in the mix throughout, but she could still be heard and was a excellent substitute for Simone Simons on “The Haunting”. It was shrewd of everyone involved to bring in a secondary guitarist into this live lineup as well, because while Kamelot is known to have a single guitar lineup, their albums are multitracked with rhythm and leads, and it helped to fill out the sound and best present these songs as close as they could be to their studio versions. I didn’t expect Khan to get emotional and teary eyed at the end of the set, and it seemed the Seven Spires members didn’t either, expressions of surprise lighting their faces as they saw him. That knocked me off my axis as well, to say the least, shakes fist… Khan!
That was Saturday, but preceding it on Friday was the other big reason I was there, to finally catch Germany’s Brainstorm live in what felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity, as these guys just do not tour here, not even on opening slots on someone else’s trek. It was weird to feel headliner anticipation at 3:30pm in the afternoon but that’s honestly what was going on at that moment, and when Andy B. Franck stalked on stage and corralled us into a horn throwing fervor, I was heartened to see I wasn’t the only one who was fired up at their being on the bill. It was a great set, the band sounded thunderingly heavy, the band always representing the thicker, meatier, slabbier side of power metal, all gasoline riffage and Franck bellowing in that slightly askew yet still richly melodic way as only he can. Their set skewed to their last three albums for the most part, with a pair of songs each from Soul Temptation and Liquid Monster in the mix, I was hoping for “Blind Suffering” off Metus Mortis but that’s a minor quibble. It was honestly just surreal to behold them standing on stage in front of me, to stand outside of myself for a second and say “hey you’re seeing Brainstorm live!”. I felt the same way two hours later when Matt Barlow came onstage with Freddie Vidales as Ashes of Ares and performed all of Dark Saga. I never got to see Iced Earth with Barlow before, so it took me a minute to register that I was really seeing this guy live who I’d been listening to since 1996 on record. The standing room crowd reaction was intense to say the least, drunkies to the left of me throwing arms around each other and getting emotional, a pit opening up in the center during “Violate” and continuing throughout. From my position on the floor, it felt like the most intense, exuberant, and visceral reaction that anyone got throughout the festival.
The energy produced during that Dark Saga set carried over for Hammerfall, who despite a fairly expected mix of old and new songs in their setlist, delivered a sledgehammer of a performance that kept the energy going. To me, they had the best straight forwardly metal stage presence of anyone at the fest, not that it was a surprise to me, because it was reminiscent of every other time I had seen them in the past. Not only is Hammerfall power metal royalty at this point, but they’re also one of the few bands still standing that understand how impactful that old school, synchronized Priest / Accept styled stagecraft can be, especially with their mechanized rhythmic assault. I listen to Hammerfall as the ultimate pick-me up when I need a dose of energy or inspiration or an immediate need to feel better, and seeing them live was like overdosing on joy as a metal fan. They make me remember what it was like back in 1998 with all the tangible excitement about the heaps of power metal spilling out of Europe at that time. I was already a sweaty disheveled mess from Ashes of Ares, and I lost it during Hammerfall, I couldn’t help it, to such an extent by the way that I was exhausted immediately after and was gnashing my teeth at the delays during the video presentation immediately after to announce next year’s lineup. I bailed on Evergrey who I’ve seen a bajillion times already and took refuge on a lobby couch to recover. Before I forget, it was nice to see Crimson Glory finally, but I had to cut my time at their set short to go to the Brainstorm signing session where I surprised those guys in telling them that I was a fan since Unholy in 1998, I don’t think they even considered the possibility of having American fans back then.
Speaking of signing sessions, the only other one I took part in was the Roy Khan / Seven Spires session, which I got in line for relatively early yet still waited quite a while, in a session that apparently took one and half hours to conclude on Saturday. I made line friends, talked to two newcomers to the subgenre about what albums they should consider getting next (I made an extra effort not to sound like an old head talking down to young ins), and then soon it was my turn to meet Roy Khan. And there I was, meeting Roy freaking Khan, who was as gracious as you’d expect. I shook his hand, and told him that it meant a lot to see him sing live in person again. He asked me when was the last time, and when I mentioned Houston in 2007, we both chuckled at how long ago it was. So I might have had an out of body experience once again, because while I don’t really get star struck with metal artists these days, Khan is someone whose work I’ve admired since… damn, I dunno, 1999 when I first heard The Fourth Legacy being played on WRUW’s The Metal Meltdown. A piece I wrote on him on this site called “The Legacy of Roy Khan” is the single most read article in the history of the blog… to put it mildly, I place him on a tier reserved for people such as Bruce Dickinson and Ronnie James Dio, insert whatever adjective you’d like to label that tier with here. It was the Seven Spires members being present that kept me grounded and focused though, because I’ve met Jack and Adrienne multiple times before. Jack remembered me from the last time Swallow the Sun played Houston, where they were both standing next to us watching the show. Adrienne surprised the hell out of me by asking, “Aren’t you The Metal Pigeon?”. I was baffled and asked her how she knew that, and she mentioned seeing a picture on social media somewhere, I didn’t ask for specifics, but was beyond surprised. On the 1% chance that she’s reading this, hello again Adrienne!
I would be remiss not to mention Seven Spires own performance as well, they were awesome as usual, although seeing them with a live keyboardist when they took the stage for Khan’s set made me consider how much having that in their own live shows would add to their stage experience. There are so many valid financial reasons to not have a live keyboardist, but I think bands whose sound features that component heavily in their sound should try to make it happen. I wish the sound guy would’ve hurried up to boost Adrienne’s vocals in the mix earlier in their set, but it improved as it went on and she sounded brilliant, particularly with her harsh vocals. That was the theme for most of the festival, the sound would be rough at first and then gradually work into something coherent. Conception had it really bad though at first on Thursday night, no kick drum and low vocals for Khan. Apparently this is a recurring complaint for festival attendees… which begs the question, why? I should talk a bit about Thursday, because originally I was only going to Friday and Saturday, but was gifted a free Thursday ticket (thanks Cary and Mike!) and although a flight delay caused me to miss Fires in the Distance and Scardust, I caught the last few songs of Teramaze (didn’t know them, they were alright) from a seat my friends had saved where I caught my breath from having just gotten off the plane, taken the MARTA to the Arts Center station, riding in a Waymo for the first time to our AirBnB (that was a wild experience), dropping off my stuff, catching a proper human Uber back to the venue, and stumbling into the lobby bewildered and overwhelmed.
Having recovered enough to go down to the floor for Ensiferum, who were pulling double duty filling in for the visa-ed Elvenking, and had a blast seeing the band again, this being my fourth time catching them live I believe. Honestly, I thought they were the best band of the day that I got to see, energetic and tight, also with clean vocals provided by their new (well to me anyway) keyboardist Pekka Montin. He added a new dimension to their live set that I hadn’t experienced any of the previous times seeing them, with Montin only having joined in 2020, his clean vocals truly excellent and a great foil to Petri Lindroos. Speaking of, I swear every time Lindroos looked in our direction, it seemed like he was staring right at me judging my energy level. I knew intrinsically that it wasn’t the case, but as a result, being compelled by delirious exhaustion, I unloaded everything I had left in the tank for their set and got really into it, and it was a blast. There was a mosh pit, something that I hadn’t expected at ProgPower honestly. I will add that our friend Jamal from the Power Metal subreddit community was in seemingly every single pit I saw at the fest, and I suspect now that he was the culprit in starting them all. Shout out to him if he’s reading this! Loved the guy with the green plastic sword and toy guitar setup who was bouncing around the periphery of the pit, it just felt festive and joyous. That was the most enjoyable experience I had seeing Ensiferum, and that’s taking into account their blistering set at a tiny coffin of a venue in Houston for PaganFest 2008. I succumbed to exhaustion and sat down for Firewind and Conception. It was surreal to see the latter live, but bad sound marred much of their set and at that point I wanted to go to sleep.
This might be a good time to talk about everything else about my experience, and I’ll start with the venue itself first. Center Stage Live’s location is damn near perfect. To be a block away from the Arts Center MARTA station that can connect you to the airport makes getting to the festival from out of town feasible without renting a car or waiting for a rideshare at the airport where it can take awhile. The venue itself, although beloved by many regular attendees, I found lacking, and I’ll cite these criticisms knowing full well that there’s nothing that can be done about it. Its way too damn small. This is a festival that tends to sell out, so 1100 people in theory pack into a cramped building that suffered from a lack of adequate air conditioning. The place was a sweat box for most of the festival, and there were rumblings going on that the air conditioning had been broken on certain days which wouldn’t surprise me. From the cramped hallway style lobby area, to the surprisingly small floor space, and the entirely too packed together seating area where getting to a seat meant causing everyone seated in that row to get up and make way for you, it was a claustrophobia inducing experience at moments. It was also kinda difficult to get a seat anywhere really, because if people weren’t saving them, many people just weren’t getting up at all in between sets for fear of losing said seat. I was all too eager to be on the floor for the bands I was hyped for, but that might’ve been a behavior acted on by a minority of attendees, perhaps a byproduct of the crowd skewing older maybe? As I mentioned before, we stayed in an extremely nice Airbnb, but it was Ubering distance away unfortunately. That meant being locked into the venue for the whole day, and it was brutal towards the end of the night. Being able to reenter the venue with a hand stamp was really great, but I wished the place had a comfortable outdoor seating area to chill out away from the stifling air for a second. Had I stayed in a hotel down the street, it might have been possible to walk down, duck into one’s room really quick for a breather, or eat some pre-bought food from the mini-fridge (I relied on the bar pizza far too often), or even deposit some merch items (or change into them, as I said the venue was a sweat box).
While we’re discussing the more logistical side of things, I’ll mention that I learned some important lessons through my experience. Firstly, never trust Google Maps when it comes to judging distance. In studying the map of this particular area of Atlanta where Center Stage Live was located, Google informed me that it was a 24 minute walk of 1.1 miles from our Airbnb. Whoa, pretty close! I walk regularly and cover far more than that distance and go way longer than 24 minutes, this should be no problem right? The thing is, I learned that Atlanta is pretty damn hilly, and the neighborhood I’d have to walk through was built on an undulating series of them that I noticed on my unnerving Waymo ride. I’m from the uber flat frontier of Houston, where the only hills we see are artificially created and few at that. So as I was not going to be walking to the venue, Ubering was the way we ended up getting back and forth. Also, the world is full of speedies and slowies, in other words, people who naturally walk fast and people who naturally walk slow. I’m a slowie, I can walk for a long time but my gait is small so I don’t cover a lot of ground at the same pace that someone else might. That’s fine, there’s room for both speedies and slowies, but for my fellow slowies out there, remember that you have to double the Google estimated walk time. And be really careful if you head to ProgPower and someone tells you something is within walking distance. They might even be technically correct, but if Google says it’s more than a ten minute walk the question you need to ask yourself is, do I want to expend precious energy on walking this distance when I have to potentially last through a 8 hour festival experience that day? The answer is no, no you don’t. Let them walk, you call an Uber.
I’ll wrap up this already lengthy diatribe by answering the question I hinted at above, that being am I going to come back for a future ProgPower? I might — I certainly want to. Lineup depending. I wasn’t impressed with the 2027 announcements apart from Power Paladin, Vision Divine, and of course Nevermore. But none of them hit the Brainstorm or Roy Khan or The Gathering level of classification as a once in a lifetime opportunity. I had far fetched hopes for Edguy, dim ones at that, but hell, Heavenly would’ve gotten me back there. So would bands such as Dark Moor (seriously why were they never invited during the Alfred Romero era?), or Heavenly or Ancient Bards yet again. Or something else jaw dropping that my mind can’t even conjure up right now. As you can tell, I skew more power than prog, and next year’s lineup is heavy on the prog with a lot of names I don’t even know. My honest personal feelings are that I get why some people go every year regardless of the lineup, but for me, that’s a lot of money to cough up for an experience that was at times exhausting and uncomfortable. Having said that, I’m actually really glad I went this year and had an experience that for a long time I had written off as being something too difficult to make happen. I got to see bands I dreamed of seeing, and met many friendly fellow attendees, pretty much everyone there was really cool. There were a handful of people who helped convince me to come this year, one of whom I’ll be doing a far more detailed, painstaking blow by blow recap of the festival with on our ProgPower recap episode of the MSRcast we’re recording tonight actually. For attendees present and past, am I being too harsh on certain aspects of the festival or on next year’s lineup? As for me, I hope ProgPower gives me reason to take flight for Atlanta once again, for now however, the pigeon will roost.
