ProgPower USA what can I really say about this concert other than amazing. ProgPower USA VI was my first Metal festival that I had ever been to, and I can guarantee you it wont be the last. When I was there, I just felt this sense of togetherness with the 1,000 or so other metalheads that were there. There was even a couple of points that I was almost in tears. I just couldn't believe that all these people would travel from all over the U.S. and the world to come together and put up horns to some of the finest Metal in the world. Anyway, on with the show.

On Thursday, September 15, was the Pre-Party, which is an experience for those that could come early and it was very special. Opening the night was Outworld from Houston, Texas. In their ranks is the present singer of Beyond Twilight, Kelly Carpentar, and mast guitarist Rustey Cooley and if you don't know who Rusty is, it's about time you found out. Outworld play a very blistering mix of Progressive and Power Metal and they were the perfect band to open the festivities for the weekend. The highlight of their set was easily the track called "The Never", just absolutely outstanding with a fantastic solo. Another highlight had to be when Rusty got the stage to himself and was able to rip his guitar apart, jaw-dropping to say the least. I had never seen a guitar virtuoso like this so close (by the way the pre-party is a little club above Earthlink Live, it's basically like your average 400 person bar). Another thing that amazed me about Rusty's performance was his guitar; I had never seen anyone play an eight string guitar. Also the top 3 or 4 frets were at this weird angle that I can't imagine made playing any easier.

Outworld's setlist:

01. Riders
02. The Never
03. Thanatos
04. City Of The Dead
05. Prelude To Madness
06. The Grey Tide

Next up was the acoustic Orphaned Land set. I didn't really know what to expect from this at all. I talked to a few people in line before the concert and they said if you had bought the special edition of "Mabool" it came with an extra disc that had the acoustic songs on it. I thought the set was good, nothing that was extra special but it was definitely a treat to see them play this possibly once in a lifetime set. I only recognized two songs that were from "Mabool", "Norra El Norra" and "El Meod Na'ala", that I thought translated very well to the acoustic realm. The lead singer, Kobi, had a very funny comment to say, something along the lines of "Tonight we are all wearing white because this is a very special performance but tomorrow we will look way more Metal wearing nothing but black". I found this comment to be pretty funny.

Orphaned Land's acoustic setlist:

01. Rainbow
02. The Evil Urge
03. Mercy
04. A Never Ending Way
05. Medley - (Aldiar Al Mukadisa, A'salk, Joy)
06. The Beloved's Cry
07. Norra El Norra
08. El Meod Na'ala

Originally Avian was going to be playing in this slot but the guitar player's father was having surgery so instead we got a special acoustic set from D.C. mofoing Cooper!!! He played songs off his solo album that came out in 1998 I believe. He had Tore from Conception playing guitar during the entire set and Dennis Ward from Pink Cream 69 came out for one song, then he had guest musicians on all other instruments. This whole set was frankly awesome. They had very little time to rehearse because of the guest musicians coming from all over the place and Tore getting there about an hour before they were supposed to play. They even played two songs, "Forgive Me" and "Within Yourself", which they had never played live before and honestly I thought those two were the best out of the whole set. While they were getting ready to play the final song, "Solisbury Hill" (a Peter Gabriel cover), there were some problems with the guitar and D.C. was just bullshitting with the audience and then he put two full beer bottles to lips and chugged both of them. I was in such awe that I couldn't even take out my camera for this picture. I got to talk with him after the set; very cool guy.

D.C.Cooper's setlist:

01. Dream
02. The Angel Comes
03. Until The End
04. Easy Livin'
05. Freedom
06. Forgive Me
07. Within Yourself
08. 3 Generations
09. Wait For Sleep
10. Solisbury Hill (Peter Gabriel cover)

To end this first night was this band called Dreamscape, who I am not a huge fan of and my friends and I were awfully tired, so we watched the first song and then went back to the hotel. I just find Dreamscape's music not overly entertaining - not bad just not worth my aching back and feet's pain at the time.
Earthlink Live has to be the best venue I have ever been to. It was at one time a movie theater and they converted it. It has seats that are in the basic half circle shape but they are at such a steep angle that there isn't one bad seat in the house. Then it has the basic floor. In total I think the venue holds 1,100 people.
Friday was the first actual day of ProgPower USA and it led to my first disappointment of the weekend. The ticket said 5:30 p.m. so I figured that was door time not concert start time, so I ended up missing Manticora which really pissed me off because they were one of the bands I really wanted to see. Oh well, I guess I can always hope for a North American tour.
Circus Maximus was up next and they totally blew the roof off the place!! They were probably my most anticipated band to see there, for I am entirely in love with their debut "The 1st Chapter", which is one of my albums of the year. They played all three of my favorites, opening with "Sin (breath taking), then played "Alive" (utterly remarkable) and then fourth they played "Glory Of The Empire". Everything about their performance was flawless; it was at this point I was almost in tears because that was just one of the best performances I had ever seen.

Circus Maximus' setlist:

01. Sin
02.Alive
03. Why Am I Here?
04. Glory To The Empire
05. The Prophecy
06. Imperial Destruction

I was hoping for a better performance plugged in than acoustic from Orphaned Land who was next on the bill and I was served up a big plate of fucking godly Metal. They played all of my favorites from the album "Mabool" and I am not familiar with their material before that album but I don't think they played anything from previous albums. Opening with "Oceanland", it was the best possible move of the evening as everyone went ape-shit. Not that it was a big deal they didn't have the choirs or middle eastern sounds from the background music from the album but it's cool with me, they still totally rocked!

Orphaned Land's Plugged In setlist:

01. Ocean Land
02. El Meod Na'ala
03. A Call To Awake
04. Kiss Of Babylon
05. Seasons Unite
06. Halo Dies
07. A Never Ending Way
08. Birth Of The Three
09. Norra El Norra
10. Ornaments Of Gold

The performance that people had waited so long for was finally upon us at this point - Conception!!! Having not really discovered them until they were announced for the concert, their performance didn't mean as much to me as others there but it totally rocked. They played such songs as "Under A Mourning Star" and "Roll the Fire". They played an excellent mix off all four albums. Ingar, the bassist, has full bizarre on stage antics - for instance when Roy was crouched down, Ingar started humping his head, hahaha!!! He also kind of bounced around the stage, which I also found awfully funny. Tore of course, being the bad ass that he is, completely ripped on the guitar. They closed their set with "Flow which is one of my favorites so that made it pretty special.

Conception's setlist:

01. Gethsemane
02. Angel (Come Walk With Me)
03. And I Close My Eyes
04. A Virtual Love Story
05. Roll The Fire
06. Silent Crying
07. Retrospect
08. Under A Mourning Star
09. In Your Multitude
10. A Million God
11. Cry
12. Reach Out
13. Parallel Minds
14. Cardinal Sin
15. Flow

Finally for the evening was Angra, which like every other band that played was jaw-droppingly awesome. Angra, like Conception, played an excellent mix off of all their albums. They did play a good amount of songs from my favorite album, "Temple Of Shadows", including "Spread Your Fire". The highlight of their entire set was the encore which was "Carry On", but here is the clincher: half way through they stopped and played one verse from "Temple Of Hate" from my favorite song from "Temple Of Shadows" and then continued to play "Carry On". Phenomenal is the word that comes to mind here. Edu was a little bit off but it might have been the sound guy. It wasn't a big difference from what it should have sounded like, so it was cool with me. Some other songs that they played were "Angels Cry", "Winds of Destination" and "Angels And Demons". They played a total of about two hours that was non stop greatness.
The next day we were there on time and I honestly was very impressed by Stride, the opening band, but I was kind of distracted by the fact that I really wanted to mingle with some of the people that were there so I left half way through their set.

Stride's setlist:

01. Imagine
02. Alive
03. Borrowed Time
04. Endeavor To Persevere
05. How Far
06. Role Model
07. Face The Day
08. Temples Of Syrinx

Another highlight of the fest was the next band, Symphorce, who I had my eyes glued to the entire time. Andy had such command over the crowd, it was ridiculous. He started out by saying "For the next 45 minutes your asses are mine", which got a huge roar from the crowd. The played some new ones such as "Haunting" and "Nowhere", "Haunting" being the highlight of their set. This was the other point in the weekend when I was almost in tears, I just could not believe how god damn unbelievably good they were; absolutely outstanding. Then they played "Fallen" last which was a particularly good closer and got everyone's horns up for this one. Andy finished the set by saying "You can have your asses back", but honestly I wish they could have played for like another 2 hours.

Symphorce's setlist:

01. Forsight
02. Everlasting Life
03. Touched And Infected
04. Two Seconds To Live
05. Nowhere
06. Tears
07. Haunting
08. Cause Of Laughter
09. Fallen

This is about the point when all the alcohol I had consumed that day was starting to catch up with me. I was starting to feel sick but I said to myself I gotta tough it out for at least half of Pink Cream 69's set. I was very glad that I did, they played 2 of my favorite tracks of their most recent album, "Thunderdome", "Thunderdome" and "Carnaby Road". During their set I figured I would get something to eat, which was definitely a good idea as I felt much better for like 30 minutes but it was worth it.

Pink Cream 69's setlist:

01. Thunderdome
02. Do You Like It Like That
03. Hell's Gone Crazy
04. Lost In Illusions
05. Carnaby Road
06. Not Sure About This One
07. The Spirit
08. Seas of Madness
09. Not Sure About This One
10. Shame
11. Keep Your Eye On The Twisted

Still not feeling the greatest and Therion was about to start, so unfortunately I had to leave about half way through again. I must say though that they sounded great with all the live backup singers. They were a lot more energetic than what I thought they were going to be, as well. I did not get to see it but appearantly they played "Black Funeral" by Mercyful Fate as the encore to their set. Though while they were playing I was sitting in the vendor area, I did get to meet some really nice people and that was one of the best parts of the weekend, meeting all these different and very cool people.

Therion's setlist:

01. Blood Of Kingu
02. Uthark Runa
03. Invocation Of Namah
04. Riders Of Theli
05. Black Sun
06. The Invincible
07. Typhon
08. Ginnungagap
09. Seven Secrets
10. Asgard
11. Schwarzalbenheim
12. The Khylsti Evangelist
13. Wine Of Aluqah
14. Rise Of Sodom And Gomorrah
15. Cults Of The Shadow
16. To Mega Therion
17. Black Funeral (Mercyful Fate cover)

Finally the headliner for the last night, Stratovarius, was up to bat. I was anxious to see them but overly anxious for I did not discover them until earlier this year and they have such an extensive catalogue that it was hard to listen to everything to be prepared. Also I really enjoy their last albums and it was stated previously that they more likely weren't going to play anything from them, which greatly disappointed me. Anyway they sounded great and they did play a couple of favorites such as "Destiny" and "Kiss Of Judas". They also played their latest single "Maniac Dance", which was really good. I thought for sure that a lot of people weren't going to be moving or doing anything during that song because I didn't think a lot of people liked it but I was very wrong. All kinds of people had horns up and were headbanging. I found this great because even though they don't sound like old Stratovarius, people still totally accepted them. The highlight of their set was definitely "Hunting High And Low" even though the roof had already been blown off several times this weekend. I think that this song just pushed the roof into outer space. It was great to hear all these metalheads singing along to this great song. To comment one other thing, I kind of thought Tolkki looked like Winnie the Pooh because he was a little big to say the least.

Well, there was a summary of the three greatest days of my life. ProgPower USA has made a definite repeat customer out of me to say the least. I will have to watch my drinking next year, so I don't miss anything. Cheerz.