Have fun all you NEARfesters.

[progdirjim(Admin)]

Well I had quite the different perspective.

Friday night - Larry Fast - nice music, nice guy, booorrriinggg show. One guy on keyboards.
Fish - GREAT performance. I like Fish's voice, and from my seat (orchestra) I could hear pretty well. The band was good, and Fish is very personable on stage.

I skipped Koenjii Sat morning.
Discipline was quite good. Again, I could hear Matthew's vocals well, and he is a fantastic singer. Emotive, AND can hit and hold a note. I was amazed at how full, rich and varied a sound they produced with drums, bass, one guitar, one keyboardist, and one vocalist (Parmenter playing the last two roles).
Peter Hammill sucked. That guy CANNOT sing. I don't care how emotive his voice is, he would benefit if he'd cough up some cash for voice lessons. My brother said it the best ' "Who stepped on a cat's tail?"
LTE was great - top notch musicians, top notch performance. I would have liked some more interaction with the audience - I've seen Tony Levin and Jordan Rudess in other bands, and they are both VERY personable.

Sun, agreed that Morgbl was a pleasant surprise. I would have said Vai rather than Satriani, with a bit of Holdsworth mixed in. Excellent jazz drummer, solid bassist. Guitarist did all the talking and had a good sense of humor.
I enjoyed RMI. I've never seen TD live, but I felt RMI had a bit more variety sonically than TD does. I would give the nod to TD's compositional skills.
Echolyn is not my favorite band - see Rick's review (assuming he does one) as he knows the band much better than I do.
Banco. I'll probably be accused of heresy, but I would say they were very good. I do not understand the people (none of our reviewers) who seem to think that seeing Banco is a transcendent experience. It is a good one, well worth it, but I would be just as happy seeing PFM.

Seeing everyone was the highlight, and I'm sorry I was unable to see Cyndee and Angel in person - next time!

[Rick and Roll]

To add on to Jim's (big review maybe tonight)...

I was yakking (what a surprise) and missed Larry Fast...lol Jim.

Missing the Japanese band was a shame...but I missed RMI myself so we're even.

I'm very glad you finally saw Discipline - let me just say that regardless of the non-love they'r getting at PE, Matthew sung better than I'd ever heard, and he was very emotional. More later.

I have a great pic of Discipline to post, and one more in my "Jim and Ed's excellent adventures" series (although the NF one a few years back was the best pic of you two).

My Hammill quote is that he sounds like he's yelling for kids to get off of his lawn. I think he can sing, but I respect your opinion Jim...

Vai yes...and they will be in Baltimore this weekend!

Agreed about Banco - well said.

What's the shirt say on the avatar? Can't read it, something about a bomb technician?

[progdirjim(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Rick and Roll

What's the shirt say on the avatar? Can't read it, something about a bomb technician?

yeah, when I reduced the picture size to make it appropriate for the avatar, it is near impossible to read. It says: "I am a bomb technician. If you see me running try to keep up."