The Internet channels dedicated to progressive rock were bursting at the seams yesterday after the shocking news of the cancellation of one of the year’s most awaited events, the North-East Art Rock Festival, affectionately known as NEARfest. When I first saw the announcement, posted as a link on the Wall of one of my Facebook friends, my first impulse was to check mentally if it was already April 1…
Unfortunately, yesterday was only March 26, and the news was no joke. As could be expected, the general mood in the so-called ‘prog community’ was subdued, and many of the people who had been attending the event for years (not to mention actively contributing to its realization) were positively devastated. For many, NEARfest went beyond a simple music festival: it was an opportunity to meet friends living thousands of miles away, and spend a weekend away from the worries and routine of ‘normal’ life. Now, instead, people are going to lose money they have already paid for airfares, car rentals and the like – not to mention the sadness at seeing their expectations of a wonderful weekend of music and friendship brutally dashed. Considering the average age of the attendees, this is not something that should be discounted.
Obviously, as all too often happens in similar circumstances, speculation was rife, as well as unashamed finger-pointing. People will always be people, and, in their disappointment, the NEARfest ‘orphans’ were looking for something – or, even better, someone – to shoulder the blame. While some blamed the poor state of the economy, others pointed their finger squarely at the close-mindedness, snobbishness and elitism of prog fans, which this year reached unprecedented levels due to a rather controversial line-up. The choice of a so-called ‘jam band’ like Umphrey’s McGee as Sunday headliner drew fierce criticism, and – added to a rather ‘experimental’ line-up lacking (unlike the previous years) any of the big names of the Seventies – contributed to a general lack of enthusiasm for this year’s edition. Some were even berating the organizers for not having disclosed the reality of the situation and asked for help before cancelling the event – something which, after some of the flak they got for their choices, I cannot blame them for not doing.
Did the news take me completely by surprise? To be perfectly honest, it did not. In some ways, I had seen it coming, especially when I compared last year’s patron sales with this year’s. Anyway, though I started putting down my thoughts yesterday afternoon, I decided to let the night bring me counsel (as we would say in Italy), and complete my essay with a clearer mind, without giving in to the temptation to blast everyone in sight. Having got our tickets in the mail two days before, that temptation would have been understandable.
As a latecomer to NEARfest, I had been looking forward to the event, possibly even more so than the previous two editions. In the past year I have been able to meet an increasing number of members of the community, both through concert attendances, my activity as a reviewer, and the ubiquitous Facebook. For me – a relative newcomer to the country, still with a semi-precarious status, and not yet feeling completely at ease in my new surroundings – feeling part of a group of people that shared a passion for a musical genre had provided a sense of belonging that is essential for expatriates. Though last year I had been deeply disappointed by the attitude of the organizers, who never bothered to acknowledge the lengthy review I had written for the website I was collaborating with at the time, I decided to go again this year, and contribute to the festival through the Patron Program (which, for two people, amounts to the not inconsiderable sum of $ 650).
As the regular readers of my blog know quite well, I am not interested in labels, and am by nature very curious of anything new – a prerequisite for anyone who ‘works’ as a more or less official reviewer. I also have rather diverse musical tastes, and will give anything a chance before dismissing it. On the other hand, years of frequentation of the online prog scene have made one thing very clear: for many fans, ‘progressive’ is just a word stripped of its original meaning. This seems to be especially true in my native country of Italy, where people worship Genesis and their ilk to the extent that newer bands are often forced to look for an audience outside the national borders, while tribute bands do a roaring trade. However, Europe as a whole seems to fare somewhat better in this sense, with festivals such as Gouveia Art Rock (which takes place in Portugal, a country that is far from wealthy for Western standards) that keep selling out, not to mention large-scale events such as High Voltage. Moreover, the nature of the continent (including the ease of travelling within the member states of the European Union) makes it easier for artists to tour other European countries if things are not too rosy on their home turf.
Though, as every adult person knows, very little in life is black and white, and things are obviously not as clear-cut as one might wish, I cannot help feeling that a festival that had become one of the year’s bright lights for many people (not to mention an event many bands and artists from all over the world would have sold their souls to play) has been failed, if not outright sabotaged, by the same people who were expected to support it – even if, in many cases, because of very real impediments. Even if this may sound harsh, it is hard not to wonder when one year people flock to see a bunch of glorified tribute bands – financial and other worries notwithstanding – and the following year the festival suddenly loses all appeal for them.
The sad truth, in my view, is that prog fans have become complacent with the astonishing revival of the genre in past few years – and have also got into the typical frame of mind of ‘having your cake and eating it’, or, if you prefer, ‘my way or the highway’. Yes, they want prog to prosper and all that, and spend hours on the Internet dissecting the most obscure albums – but, when it comes to supporting those bands and artists that are flying the flag in the here and now, then all of a sudden they bail out, unless they see one of the ‘big names’ (preferably dating back from the Seventies, though a few from later years would also qualify) on the bill. I wonder how any of those ‘new’ bands (many of whom have been around for ten years or more) are supposed to become ‘headliner material’ if no one gives them a chance to play in front of a decent audience. In a sort of perverse way, it reminds me of the situation in which many young job-seekers find themselves – being unable to apply for jobs due to lack of experience, which no one allows them to gain by hiring them.
It does not help either that many of the hardcore members of the ‘community’ have a much more limited view of prog than the one espoused by the press – as even a cursory look at Classic Rock Presents Prog (a magazine I do not particularly care for, but which has been undeniably successful) should be enough to prove. Additionally, the younger set of prog fans are also more likely to be into progressive metal (even in its more extreme incarnations) or ‘crossover’ acts, both of which are looked upon with suspicion or even disdain by a good deal of the older stalwarts. In spite of the organizers having made it very clear in last year’s festival programme that the 2011 edition was going to be a transitional one, people still refused to accept that the future of progressive rock – if it is to survive – lies beyond the slowly drying out reservoir of the ‘old guard’, and those newer bands that, to various degrees, reproduce the Seventies vibe. When a band like Iona are considered ‘more prog’ (whatever that means) than The Pineapple Thief or The Mars Volta, then you know that the future of the whole genre is in serious trouble.
Obviously, the above remarks do not apply to everyone, and I would never downplay the very serious difficulties that many people are going through in their everyday lives. It would also be crass of me to suggest people have to force themselves to like music that is not to their taste – I, for one, know how excruciating it can be to sit through a CD you cannot get into. However, while not suggesting that people go against the grain of their own tastes – let alone resort to stealing in order to finance their festival-going habit – it is also clear that a change of attitude is needed if we do not want progressive music (rock or otherwise) to die out for good.
Anyway, whatever the truth of the situation, yesterday will be remembered as a very sad day for the whole community of progressive rock fans, at least as regards the USA. Even if the NEARfest organizers decide to regroup and make a comeback next year, it is unlikely that things will ever be the same. Might it have been avoided? Not being privy to the organization’s inner workings, I do not claim to have any easy answers. Clearly there were issues of miscommunication, as no one who was not an insider had any idea that the general sales were going so badly. However, it is also difficult to ignore the bickering that went on for days after every band announcement, and the nasty words that accompanied the disclosure of the Sunday headliner. This is why many of yesterday’s proclamations smack of crocodile tears, or at least sound needlessly defensive. I do not want to sound overly pessimistic, but I cannot help wondering if yesterday’s events will mean a death knell for this amazing ‘prog revival’, or rather a much-needed wake-up call for the whole scene.
Fire of Unknown Origin 
Guigo was here and read all this “interlude”. 🙂
Well, maybe it’s time to join all rock parts into a single one: metal, punk, inide, prog, fusion – our genre as a whole is an endangered species. And we could have real rock festivals contemplating all slices of this gateau – and no, I’m not talking about Rock In Rio series.
I discovered that by chance. It started in 2003 and now spreads thru 160 Brazilian cities, 7 or 8 more in Spanish America and also one event in NYC.
http://gritorock.com.br/
Maybe it’s a trail to be explored.
Baci.
I agree with you, Guigo, but go and tell something like that to the label-happy brigade…
What’s been keeping many festivals alive Jazz or Rock in the last few years is the mixing of genres. Often there is a main stage for the older well know acts and a few side stages for more open or outside styles (experimental, world, avant garde, electronic, even country, all at the same fest). Dave Laczko and myself will be in Italy in July to perform at a festival in Padua, now in it’s 7th year of mixed genre music. While working with a much tighter budget this year the promoters and I still expect a good turnout and some great music. I think mixing genres is a good way to go in today’s market, but that said it takes a big shift in promotion as well. The many festivals here in Austin every year are starting more and more to mix genres and it’s working keeping ticket sales up. It seems odd to me that ticket sales were so low for Nearfest, perhaps it’s more about how it was promoted? Nice article Raffaella.
I agree 100% with you about mixing genres. The problem with NEARfest is that it had become a sort of clique thing – there was very little advertising outside the usual channels. If you keep preaching to the choir, a day will come when part of said choir becomes less responsive, and leaves you high and dry when you least expect it.
Right you are, the narrow minded outlook is killing some great jazz magazines and jazz festivals too. There will always be the big ones that survive like Monterey and Umbria but they are more than about the music. But, for the small festivals, if they don’t come to an idea that will attract more fans they will lose and we just saw that happen.
Agree 100%. Sad but true, the old stalwarts voted with their wallets to punish the organizers for choosing a “transitional” line-up!
Nothing will be the same going forward. Hope to see at least RoSfest survive such a transition, when the big Neo bands start winding down.
NF is dead, long live NF!
To be consistent with my point of view, yesterday I got tickets for ROSfest. I may not be wildly enthusiastic about its musical direction, but I also know that – as you pointed out the other evening – I might be positively surprised by seeing a band play live.
If you are coming to RoSFest, you may want to consider coming to Philly the night before, since Blackfield (Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree + Israeli singer Aviv Geffen) is perfoming here that night.
Blackfield are playing in DC on May 18th (we live in Alexandria, Northern Virginia), so we get a chance to see them closer to home – even though I’m not really crazy about what I have heard from them. Thanks for the suggestion anyway!
On a different note, my ‘clique’ comment is mainly based on my own experience. The organizers seemed to rely very heavily on the support of a restricted group of people, using a particular discussion board for their announcements instead of their own website or Facebook (which would have given them access to a much wider audience). Personally, as a newcomer to the US (I moved here in November 2008) and to the whole US prog scene, I never felt particularly welcome whenever I got in contact with that group of people (with very few exceptions). The incident with my review not being even acknowledged was just the tip of the iceberg.
“I wonder how any of those ‘new’ bands (many of whom have been around for ten years or more) are supposed to become ‘headliner material’ if no one gives them a chance to play in front of a decent audience.”
This.
Thanks, John! It seems simple logic to me, but apparently other people think differently….
Just to throw this thought out there, a band like Umphrey’s McGee as a headliner may have been a mistake from the standpoint of being lesser known in the prog community and also being a jam band versus a full-fledged prog band; but I think in addition, Umphrey’s McGee have been doing a lot of touring and a lot of gigs, and they make all of their concerts available for listening on their website. What this sort of means is that there is no reason to travel to NearFest to see a band like Umphrey’s McGee, when they could have been seen without travelling when they came to your local town. I have no idea how much of an effect that this had on ticket sales, but speaking personally, one of the main allures of a prog festival is a chance to see bands play that may only play that festival or 2 or 3 live shows in the USA. Of course, I am only speaking hypothetically, as tempted as I have been to see one of these festivals, I have yet to pack my bags and make a trip.
Scott! Long time no see! Thanks for dropping by. I agree about your remark about festivals providing a chance for people to see bands that otherwise would not play here in the US very often. However, there were 11 bands on the bill, and only a couple of them (including UM) were from the US… I am not sure there will be many other opportunities for US audiences to see Curved Air or New Trolls, who belong to the old guard. This débacle, however, cannot put down to a single cause. Lots of interesting points emerged from the Facebook discussion on my blog post, as well as from the various discussions on the ProgressiveEars forum (where I lurk) following the announcement of the event’s cancellation. I’ll try to draw some conclusions in a follow-up post in a couple of weeks or so.
Anyway, all the best for the final rush of the tax season! Thankfully it will be over soon….
Judging by the tour dates listed for Umphrey’s McGee they are not playing in nearly as big of venues as I would have thought. A lot of 300-600 seat places. The festivals they play are already well known with a built in audience if you will. Perhaps not the best choice for several reasons. A very good band though. They will be in Austin in April and will most likely draw well but that’s Austin and at a venue that always does well.
I would imagine also that their minimum fee for a performance is pretty steep being such a large band. They obviously have good management.
I know they were thrilled to play NF, and their fanbase reacted in a very gracious way, at least judging by the posts on their official board. Personally, I see progressive music (I’ve started being sick and tired of the whole ‘prog’ shtick) as a very wide umbrella, and would gladly attend any ‘crossover’ festivals, so to speak. Unfortunately, a good deal of the members of the ‘prog community’ seem to cherish their insular nature – earlier today I came across somebody calling NEARfest a ‘private club’. Oh my….
Crossover festivals are far more fun – much as I love prog, I’d rather see a mix of genres across a weekend than wall-to-wall prog. And if there’s more than one stage there’s always going to be something worth seeing even if you don’t like the band on the main stage.
That’s what I love about the Cambridge Rock Festival in the UK – the bill is prog-heavy (Marillion, Barclay James Harvest, Asia and The Enid have all played there in recent years, but there’s also classic rock, metal and blues.
Last year had far fewer big name headliners (Mostly Autumn topped the bill on the Sunday night – they’re a great band, but hardly of huge international profile). But it didn’t matter; all the bands, especially on the prog-heavy Sunday delivered superb performances.
First of all, thank you for stopping by and reading my article! It makes me happy to see new people here. As you may have gathered from my post, I am very much in favour of ‘crossover’, and one of the reasons why NEARfest appealed to me is that it offered a wide range of bands within the progressive rock spectrum, including some that prog purists would have never labelled as ‘prog’. Obviously, those festivals that have more than one stage are on a much larger scale, and require much larger investments – but the returns are undeniable. Anyway, I will touch upon this issue in a follow-up post, which I hope to publish as soon as the dust will have settled. Watch this space, and thanks again!
Been a lot of discussion on Twitter about this, and it divides between those who blame it on prog purists being too conservative, and those who blame the organisers for a weak bill.
Since I’ve not even heard of the majority of the acts I can’t really comment on the latter. Umphrey’s McGee is one of the few I have heard of – although I did see Jeavestone at CRF in 2009, fairly low down the bill.
Personally, as I believe my article makes it quite clear, I tend to blame the purists as well. However, there are a number of more complex issues at play, and I will touch upon them in my follow-up piece.
Really sucks. Never been but feel bad for Half Past Four (interviewed them a last month here: https://bandslikezappa.com/interviews/half-past-four). They were scheduled to play – bit of a break-through gig for them.
It would have been a breakthrough for them, and they would’ve deserved it. I saw Half Past Four last year at ProgDay, and was also one of the first people to review their album in 2009. They are very nice people, and I hope they’ll get another chance soon.
One factor that has not been noted, and which was completely out of the control of the NF organizers is this: Peter Gabriel is doing a very limited US spring tour with the New Blood Orchestra, with locations only announced on his website a few weeks before regular tickets went on sale for NF. The only East Coast show between New York City and Washington is scheduled for Philadelphia on June 25th — what would have been the Saturday of NF.
The Philadelphia venue is a 3-hour drive from the NF site, meaning that you could only attend both events if you effectively gave up on seeing all but the first two NF acts on Saturday. And the cost of attending both was, for some people, more than they could reasonably justify — especially for those who flew to NF and would have to rent a car to make the trip to the Gabriel show in addition to the cost of tickets.
I and the folks who I go to NF with each year had to do some serious thinking about which event to attend. We chose NF, but now we’re waiting for Gabriel tickets to go on sale.
This situation also points out an issue with many festivals’ approach to ticket sales — the requirement that you buy all-event (or, at minimum, Saturday/Sunday combo) tickets. Yes, in a situation like this, you could use the bulletin boards and mailing lists to buy just a Sunday ticket. That can work well for an individual. But in our situation, we would have needed four seats for Sunday, and we want to sit together. That option would be rather unlikely in the “aftermarket” situation.
That could well be a major factor – I’ve seen attendances of some bands’ gigs get hammered when there’s a major clash like that.
Wasn’t aware than Nearfest is an “all-or-nothing” weekend ticket only affair. Almost all UK festivals I know of (prog-orientated or otherwise) have a day ticket option. They’re not usually reserved seating either.
It’s been mentioned in other posts that perhaps having more than one stage, mixed genres and varied tix would have helped. Most festivals in the states now have a grounds ticket that allows one to see a side stage performance but not the main stage. Also, day pass or full event pass as you mentioned would be a good idea.
I’m not sure that Gabriel’s show would really have made much difference if NF had done a few things differently.
Over the decade that I’ve been attending them, both NEARFest and RoSFest have offered Friday night tickets and Saturday+Sunday tickets, and also an all-weekend combo, but no individual-day tickets for Saturday and Sunday. Those you can only get from people who are selling them after realizing they couldn’t attend the entire event.
Indoor events like these, which use indoor concert halls as a venue, really don’t have much of a opportunity for multiple stages or parallel programming tracks. The rationale is that this approach gives the attendee better sight lines and better acoustics.
But in the US as well as the UK, the majority of outdoor festivals — which are usually general admission, but sometimes also have a VIP section for the primary stage –do this as a matter of course. This is just as true for small folk festivals that attract a few hundred people as it is for huge events like Lollapalooza, Coachella, or Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival.
Thank you for your comments, Dave! I also believe that having the possibility to buy individual tickets (as ROSfest is doing this year, as well as offering weekend packages) would have allowed more people to attend, even if only partially. This would have been encouraged younger people, who generally don’t have a lot of disposable income, as well as people living in the area who didn’t want to commit for three whole days. However, in order to attract more people the organizers would have had to publicize the event much more widely than they have been doing so far, instead of relying on the ‘usual suspects’ – who this year let them down big time.
I don’t see that good acoustics sells more tix. It works for me but not for most festival goers. Also, I think there are always options to be had. Moving to a city with more venues to use, have a small outdoor stage in a parking lot, etc. Mixed genre perhaps is the real key to attracting more people. I’m of course coming from Austin with unlimited festivals and shows all year in town and outside in smaller towns. Those who survive change. That said Austin an area where people love to go out and party. I’m not sure where NF is held if that is the case. Again, perhaps a different city would work.
It’s sad to see it happen to NF this way but I think it’s a very good wake up call and the promoters should really look at all the options before planning another one.
NF has value for several reasons making it all the more important to work on the problems at hand.
Willie, NF was held in Bethlehem, PA, a few miles from Allentown, in the Lehigh Valley area – a perfect location for people living on the East Coast, very easy to reach (a four-hour drive for in the DC area). The problem, as I pointed out in my response to Dave’s post, is lack of any publicity outside the usual restricted circle (or perhaps I should say clique) of regular attendees.
Got ya!!! For some reason I never gathered it was more of a party than a festival. If they want it to survive it’s really not that difficult to pull off. I was really surprised when I did a festival in Phoenix how getting the right promoter got us great sponsors including Fender Musical Instruments and DW Drums. We had enough money to work with that we let people in free the second day and had a great time.
I’d truly like to see NF pull it off bigger and better next year.
Keep up the great insight Raffaella.
>>I don’t see that good acoustics sells more tix.
Regardless of whether they’re dinosaurs or unknowns from halfway ’round the world, the bands that play NF and RF tend to be ones you may not get to see in concert again for years, if at all. So, at least from my perspective, getting the most out of those shows means a comfortable seat, a good view, and high quality production values in terms of sound and, secondarily, lighting.
The expectations I have for that kind of show are very different from the ones I have for a large outdoor show or a big arena/shed concert.
And, honestly, at the ripe old age of sixty, with the early stages of knee arthritis setting in, I’ve lost my taste for shows where I’ll end up standing for 3+ hours on rough ground or a concrete-slab floor. Or standing on a flimsy plastic chair just for a glimpse of the performer’s feet. The same applies for huge outdoor shows when there’s bad weather. It’s got to be an act that is very high on my must-see list.
I did my stint in the mud at the original Woodstock, and have put in over forty years of working backstage at the Philly Folk Fest in every kind of weather from near-freezing rain to 103-degree heat to a full-force hurricane. I’m long past the point where I need to prove (to myself or others) that I can handle it, or that I’m willing to sacrifice for the music.
Another factor is the size of the audience. The venues that NF and RosFest have been using are halls that seat about a thousand. So, if only one person in twenty who’d attend a big arena show cares about acoustics and sight-lines, that’s theoretically enough to fill the hall.
>>For some reason I never gathered it was more of a party than a festival.
Both NF and RF have extended breaks between each set, which means that people have time to hang out, visit the vendor/merch rooms, meet’n’greet, etc. That, combined with a relatively small audience, means that there is a lot of camaraderie, especially among the regular attendees. (When the news came about the cancellation, I was already thinking about which wines to bring along for a dinner expedition I make with about 20 people every year!)
Also, every night there are both private and public parties, not to mention picking sessions, at the primary hotels, as well as lots of activity in the hotel bars.
>>the usual restricted circle (or perhaps I should say clique) of regular attendees
Umm, I wouldn’t call it a clique. I initially came to these festivals out of curiousity, essentially because one or two band names rang a bell. I wasn’t a prog expert then, and probably never will be one, either.
What I found is much like what I see when I attend science-fiction conventions — a group of geographically-disparate people with a common interest who are getting a chance to delve into it deeply, all in one place at the same time. To an outsider, it can seem like a clique, because there is a shared base of esoteric knowledge that informs and underlies many of the conversations.
Well, all that said and the festival failed. Up until this point it seems that everyone was offering positive ideas of change and how to make the festival a success. If you are the typical NF supporter I don’t see it coming back anytime soon.
Being comfy in your old age is fine, I’m up in years myself but it’s not about being comfy or a matter of proving anything to anyone it’s about the music and making NF a new a successful festival so people can enjoy progressive forms of music that would otherwise not get heard in the area. I guess that’s a dead deal.
If you and the other regulars want to keep if going as is you will have to fork over a lot more bucks. Perhaps with a crowdfund like kickstarter as one person mentioned.
Dave, that sounds totally like a festival I would want to attend and hang at. In other words it sounds a lot more fun than a “prog” concert. I don’t remember it being promoted as such a fun event. Am I missing something?
On a side note I have heard from a few musicians that the promoters were not the best when it comes to communication. This is all third hand of course, so, are we going to hear from the promoters at any time on this?
From my own point of view, it was a lot of fun, though I am not a ‘party-hard’ kind of person, and never attended any of the after-show parties. However, it was a way to meet people I’d only interacted with online, and had become good friends, and to make new acquaintances – especially among the musicians. Last year I met Dennis Rea of Moraine and Iron Kim Style, and this was the start of a real friendship. And then, I loved the whole atmosphere, including the town itself, with its quaint Central European character.
As regards the promoters, I have never had any interaction with them (not even when I sent them my review) besides strictly practical matters. They have been posting on their chosen platform (a well-known prog discussion board), but have kept away from anything else, including the event’s two or three Facebook pages.
A very well-articulated “thinking” blog about the abrupt demise of NEARfest 2012. Thank you.
Regards,
SDM in SoCal (Systems Theory and Ex-Gregorii projects)
Thank you, Steven! I have often read your posts on PE and Facebook, and especially appreciate your input.
Great article Raffaela. I don’t know if anyone in the prog community has mentioned this yet (and I could be way off base with this suggestion), but perhaps in the future new festivals can be started using a platform like kickstarter.com. It certainly seems like a perfect marraige for the prog community to venture into a fan based funding enterprise. Again, without really knowing what went on in the inner workings of the NEARfest festival, it’s difficult to speculate on how to avoid this in the future. Hey, if all else fails, how about we all change the moniker of “progressive rock” to “intelligent rock”. That way, we can all agree on a more aprepos classification of this style of music. I think we all agree that every band that falls under the progressive rock umbrella needs to have some semblance of intelligence to construct their music (although I can already see the trolls coming out in droves and calling us musical elitists for creating such a sub-genre of music).
Patrick,
I’d keep the term “Progressive Rock” and emphasise the original meaning of the term. Don’t let it be hijacked by a hidebound minority who stopped listening to anything new somewhere around 1977.
I personally loathe the way some people insist that any artist with anything new to say can never be called “progressive” or “prog” because there’s a stigma dating back from the so-called “punk wars” I think the latter is very much a UK thing – a lot of prominent media pundits came of age in the late 70s, and like many of America’s Boomer generation they can’t separate their generational prejudices from the bigger picture.
First off I think we owe a big thanks to Raffaela for providing this platform. Lots of good feedback here. I’ve learned a lot about NF that’s for sure. I’m going to keep up on the progress or lack of simply because I’m interested is seeing if NF ever comes back. I’ve run some very successful and odd festivals so I know it can happen if the NF promoters are willing to change. That’s the key and time will tell.
You are all very welcome, and I should be the one to thank you for having made this post (and my blog) so successful in terms of visits and feedback. I have already started putting down some ideas for a follow-up article, to be published when the dust has settled a bit. Tempers are still a bit frayed, and there are people dealing with practical issues (like having to cancel reservations, and losing money in the process). It would be great if this was just a hiccup, and some lessons were learned.
Reading both the comments here and on the discussion forum on the Nearfest site I’m rapidly forming the impression there is fault on both sides here.
Some of the regulars who didn’t buy tickets this year do come over as very narrow in their tastes, and appear to represent the antithesis of what progressive music ought to be all about. Complaints about Pineapple Thief, by all accounts a superb band, being “not prog” make me wonder what exactly planet they’re on.
But I’m not willing to let the organisers off that lightly – They ought to know their audience well enough to know how to strike the right balance between old-school prog and the diverse newer bands, and they do appear to have failed at this.
In my opinion, the organizers’ biggest fault was – especially in the light of the changes they wanted to implement, at least for this year – not to have advertised the event outside their usual privileged channel. What is the use of having three Facebook pages for NEARfest (with millions of people using FB everyday), and never using them?
Sensible point – if you’re not going to publicise an event and rely on the same crowd year after year, you have to keep indulging that crowd’s tastes, no matter how narrow. If you want to try and broaden the appear with a more diverse bill, you have to get out there and publicise it.
How does Rosfest compare? I know some UK bands who have played or will play there (Touchstone last year and The Reasoning this year), both of whom I’d consider bands with crossover appeal – while they have obvious prog influences their fanbases include a lot of rock/metal types rather than diehard prog-heads.
Hi Raff, Great writing about this festival. For me I could not afford to go to NEARFest this year but I wanted to go. vonFrickle played Progday a few years back and they were one of the true highlights. To see them in the daytime in the outdoors is much different than their usual indoor shows so the chance to see them with full light show and projections closer than the Chicago area was very tempting.
I do think that this Festival will be hard pressed to get people back who traveled from overseas after a cancellation like this. Not finding fault just making a statement. People who bought plane tickets will probably lose that money and that can be a big dollar ticket. So even if they try to book again next year the people who would travel from afar might not be too willing to purchase a plane ticket to get here. At least for a few years anyway.
It’s a sad state for sure that this has been cancelled. I did see some band like you mentioned The New Trolls and others from other lands. I thought that would be cool to see them. Regarding UM, I have seen them at the Warren Haynes Xmas Jam and I did enjoy their set. I also think they did a cover of King Crimson’s RED..one of my personal favorite songs.
I do know that a few years ago they had a festival where Adrian Belew’s Power Trio and UM played on the same stage. They joined Adrian for some of the King Crimson covers. I believe Bella Fleck was there too now there’s a genre crossing festival.
I have always liked how Progday has a wide range of styles in their bands, usually something old school, something new, something progressive on the metal or math metal side and some foreign bands as well. A little Avant is always mixed in too. What a joy it is to see such a variety. This year Half Past Four and vonFrickle were playing NF and both of them were Progday alumni. It has gone both ways actually…..Secret Oyster played Progday after year after they played NF and so did La Maschera di Cera.
All this being said I know that people from NF came to Progday and visa versa…..so this is a sad thing for the Progressive Rock community. I sincerely hope that one day NF comes back and this is all just a distant memory of a year when peoples pockets were just too empty to go.
Peace, Mike
OMG–Better give me a few days to read all this then I might post a comment–WOW!
It’s probably because The Flower Kings would not be there!
Well, Karmakanic were on the bill, and, if my memory serves me right, they are in some ways related to TFK…
Wow, I just found out Planex X was going to be a highlighter, or headliner, they have an awesome drummer, Virgil!
Yes, Karmachanic’s bassist, Jonas Reingold, is the bassist for the Flower Kings. I’ve finished reading the post, pretty much, skimmed over some of the comments though …
Virgil Donati is Planex X’s drummer I’m pretty sure; he did a clinic here in Dayton, OH and mentioned he was in Planex X and played a great tune off the album with Alan Holdsworth–I’m pretty sure of that, or close …
Anyone know if Planet X ‘was’ scheduled?
Are the organizers reimbursing $ the people spent already for the gig?
Ironically, didn’t Steve Hackett steal the show last year? Or was that another gig? (Ironic b/c Garbiel’s show was mentioned in the comments.) (And Genesis in the post.)
I could not find the line-up; but, seems to me some bands could have saved the gig, like Porcupine Tree or TransAtlantic!
They are both too big for the festival, and in any case there are a lot of people who don’t like them. I would have considered not going if Transatlantic had headlined. I will soon post a follow-up to the original article, including some suggestions from musicians and fans, and more of my personal insights on the whole business.
Both PT and TA had already played NF and both likely would have played again if asked.