PROGRESSIVE NATION 2009 TOUR NOW WORTH GOING TO!
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:42am by Vince Neilstein
Back in March I bitched that this year’s Progressive Nation lineup — featuring Pain of Salvation, Beardfish, and Zappa Plays Zappa supporting Dream Theater — was decidedly less metal than last year’s lineup (which featured 3, BTBAM, and Opeth supporting DT — killer show) and wasn’t worth the price of admission to anyone under 50. A press release delivered good news to the MS Mansion earlier this week, announcing that Bigelf and Scale the Summit have replaced Pain of Salvation and Beardfish. Suh-weet!
Scale the Summit are the real bonus; their early-2009 instru-metal release Carving Desert Canyons is certainly a contender for my year-end “best of” list, and I’m psyched to finally see the band live. I find Bigelf’s band of retro-prog somewhat intriguing, if not terribly interesting, but I’m open to the live experience. And Dream Theater… ya know, they’re fuckin’ Dream Theater. Axl was tired and planned on leaving after a few songs at last year’s Progressive Nation but the band was killing it so hard he ended up staying for the entire show, including two encores. And we all know I’m a total Dream Theater fanboy.
Suddenly Prog Nation is definitely worth attending this year. If only it stopped in NYC. View the full list of tour dates here.
And, oh hey! Dream Theater have a new album coming out tomorrow [update: I'm an idiot, it came out yesterday!] called Black Clouds & Silver Linings! Watch the video for “A Rite of Passage” here and watch some footage of James Labrie stinking it up at this year’s Download Festival here.
-VN
Scale the Summit put on a pretty entertaining show despite having no typical ‘frontman’ to hype the crowd up. I saw them open up for Protest the Hero on the ‘Heads Will Roll Tour” which I got in for free (thanks MS!). My wife actually loved them so much she made me purchase their CD after their show.
I saw STS on that tour also. I thought they were great.
i kindof feel bad for those bands. they could have kept one of those for a more appealing band, but i guess the tour organizers went for completely underground instead, nobody bought tickets, and now their missing out on a playing to pig crowds
Umm…No. You should actually know the facts before you speak:
“Their label Inside Out just recently lost the financial funding for the tour as a result of their distributor SPV recently claiming bankruptcy…which effectively meant that both Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish lost the tour support that was essential to their ability to come to North America for Progressive Nation.”
-http://www.dreamtheater.net/news_dreamtheater.php#pnlineup
As for whining about the festival being less Metal… That’s why the name of the tour does not have Metal in it. Why pigeon-hole a great opportunity to see some killer acts that don’t normally have a venue.
Personally, I’d love to see Attention Deficit,OHM,Spaced Out & Exivious play so the tour can live up to its moniker.
Feel sorry for PoS not playing to the large audiences they deserve, but I suppose all the more for Europe!
im just commenting on the metalsucks article
scale the summit = great band
yes they are i saw them two years ago before they got signed to Prosthetic Records with Pack of Wolves
I saw Bigelf play a mostly empty Mercury Lounge back in February on a Sunday night and they put on an amazing show. Really good organ-driven, 70’s prog-influenced hard rock, like ELP and Black Sabbath jamming together. One of the other 30 or so people there was Mike Portnoy, who was also seeing htem or the first time, so there ya go.
BIGELF! These dudes played our venue the other night, and housed the joint. Black Sabbath meets the ambient, spacey days of Pink Floyd. Throw in some King Crimson and some Black Crowes garage tinge and these dudes provide a sonic backdrop that is a breath of fresh air in this time and day. HAILS BIGELF!!!!
Isn’t that technically part of NYC?
This new lineup has nothing on the old one. Pain of Salvation is a better band than Bigelf, Scale the Summit, and Beardfish combined and not having them on the tour will be really shitty. Besides, the point of this progressive nation was to emphasize the prog elements, not the metal as was last year’s tour. Still going though, ’cause it’ll still be a sick show.
Yeah, this is great, unless you’re me, who would have paid the ticket price twice over just to see Beardfish’s opening set… then it bites. I’ll still go and see what there is to see.
First off, the tour is called Progressive Nation. So the tour is going to have Progressive bands, metal or not. And also, Frank Zappa has influenced Devin Townsend, Animosity, and even Mike Portnoy so people who complain about this tour not being as Metal have a point, they need to realize that the tour is NOT a metal tour and also the influence of Zappa in Metal.
damn fucking right! you stole the words from my mouth. this is a PROG ROCK tour, so vince neilstein, dont get your pannies in a bunch over it not bein ‘metal’ enough…complaining about Progressive nation tour not having metal is like complaining The Warped tour doesnt have jazz. [or punk for that matter ]
To the dude that name dropped Ohm, I concur. STS is great too
scale the summit is fucking awesome! chris is the nicest mofo i’ve ever met!!!
Pain of Salvation and Beardfish are amazing bands. I couldn’t care less how metal the tour is. Portnoy generally has a great taste in music.
Very sad for Beardfish. They gave a fantastic performance at Nearfest and I really feel they have the potential to resonate for a larger audience. PoS I don’t feel quite as bad for since they’ve been around longer and are (or should be by now) better known (among metal fans at least…which has got to be a larger audience than progressive rock). The Beardfish guys are super nice in person as well.
Hold your bananas, this sucks!!! i mean, nothing bad to say about Scale the Summit, they rule, but Pain of Salvation is incredible!! One of my favorite bands of all time, hands down. LIsten to The Perfect Element Pt. 1, and you’ll see what i mean. But damn, I woulda given my right nut to see these guys.
i’m so fucking pumped that scale the summit is now on the tour! no offense to PoS, but i just don’t really like them. i’ve tried, but i just don’t. sorry. i was bummed that beardfish had to leave though, they were very cool. and after hearing that bigelf was now on the US leg, i looked them up and found them totally cool as well. all in all, i think this is a total improvement. cannot wait to see this show in asheville. especially because of dream theater
im seeing this on aug 22 in milwaukee. goin to be great. zappa plays zappa is going to be a treat.
Im sorta pissed that PoS got canceled, I was kinda getting into BE and Entropia. However, its fucking Bigelf, I can’t complain. and scale the summit seems like something I can get into. I’m driving from Long Island to Connecticut with a friend for the August 5th show. Anyone else gonna b at that one?
SO PISSED THAT PAIN OF SALVATION HAD TO DROP OFF THE TOUR. If only scale the summit were to replace beardfish and leave the rest of the tour intact…pain of salvation tied dream theater for the best band on that tour. oh well, still going.
They should have at least kept Pain of salvation on the ticket, like, beardfish, i like em but ok im not heartbroken that they arent gonna play anymore, i wanna hear some more metal style music when i go to this concert, and beardfish is more like,, yes and king crimson (which are good bands, but not the point.) Seriously though Pain of salvation i t hink would have been perfect to see, there was alot of people looking forward to them and now they arent playing anymore? Yikes!!
BigElf sucked. Theyre total L.A, contrived, bullshit. I’m really disappointed Pain Of Salvation was dropped, especially considering I bought tickets with the assumption that they were still playing. It was even on the site.