Weekend of Prog In Pittsburgh

[Laudio9]

Morning Moonlings,
I just wanted to give you a brief summary of this past weekends Prog
event... the Day of Prog, the night before the Day of Prog and then Asia
on Sunday night....

First off, I just wanted to say I had a great time...always good to see live
music...plus seen alot of friends and familiar prog faces and some moonies!! Hi BlueDawn!!! RicknRoll was there too... Once again thanks goes out to Howard Levy for bring prog to Pittsburgh... Howard is a great human!!

First of all Friday nights show was the Yes Tribute band,
Going For the One - really good band...all the musicians were top notch, did most of the songs from early Yes although they did do one song from Going for the One which was Wonderous Stories... loved the Yes version of America they did too. They didn't do any epics but stuff like Heart of the Sunrise and And You and I were all good, everyone seemed to be really enjoying them.

Next was Saturday, day two of the Day of Prog....
Seen all of these bands at previous 3RP's but still good to see again....

Sklenik was the first band.... unique, 3 piece, the use of Bassoon was cool, he/she also doubled on guitar. Keyboard player had a B3 and Mellotron..all analog, so it was cool...the only problem was they were way to loud for such a small venue but they were good...

Gravity..... Let me just say this "young" band was amazing...I think only one of them are 21 and he just turned 21....These kids can hang with the best of them...the guitarist is a young Steve Vai...he's just incredible and the keyboard player is a young Jordan Rudess....the drummer is a young Mike Portnoy and the bass player is just young...he pretty much just held his ground while all of these music acrobats where going on....the best thing about these guys was the attitude...they are all great musicians already but with very little ego, the humbleness is what really made them stand out...these are 4 great kids that have an incredible future ahead of them...I really hope they take advantage of all the talent they have...very impressive...I would definitely go to see them again.

Next was Mandrake Project.....well, I did see them before and after seeing a band like Gravity FULL of young unbridled energy....Mandrake was a bit of a let down...First of all, they didn't even have the whole band there...the cello player was missing but the music itself was melancholy and lacked luster...the only time they really seemed to click is when they played a couple cover tunes, one from Floyd, which they didn't even do the vocal part of "One of these days I'm going to break you into little pieces" But anyway...this was the weakest band of the day IMO.

THEN FINALLY-----Syzygy!!! Syzygy was once again great, Mark Boals was singing with them again and they did songs from all 3 cds...everything sounded great... Carl the guitarist is really good Sam the Keyboard player was excellent, did a great solo piece....they were really good and a good way to end the Day of prog...they also had a 5.1 audio cd of the set they did at 3RP last year for sale. Only 300 signed copies and a thank you to Howard on the back of it... I got my copy, number 89/300 sounds great...I would definitely see this band again....

THEN---- SUNDAY night... ASIA with all original members, second time I've seen them in a couple years, seen them open for the psuedo Yes when Steve played in both bands too...but Sunday night was special...at Carnegie Music Hall, nice little theater and they were really good... I think the sound wasn't as good as it should have been but the performance was great...it was really good seeing Steve, Carl, John and Geoff... Wettons Voice is still strong, Carl's solo was great, Steve's solo was great...it was a nice night of music.

Ok welp, Just wanted to let the moonies know alittle bit about this weekend of Prog....

Laudio

[Ted]

Laudio,

Thanks so much for sharing this info with us... wow... sounds like a great time was had by all...

If you can post a link to pictures we'd really appreciate that as well!!

Thanks again!! woo hoo!

Regards from Texas,
Ted

[OverHillandDale(Admin)]

Excellent review.

Prog Bassoon. I love it.

I get to see Asia Wed. night. Looking forward to it.

[ProgressivePaul]

Da Burgh!

[mailotron]

merci L9 reès bon review ;-)
I realy like Syzygy on cd , hope they'll cross the big pond one day :-)

[mariocc]

nice Laudio...I saw Asia 2007 here and still have that nice impression ...great

[NorCalKurt]

Good times Laudio! Glad you were out to help Howard make the day happen.