Progressive Nation Cruise - TA/Jon/Riverside/Spock's/Devin/Anathema/Belew/more!

[kristi]

The Anathema shows were the highlight of the cruise for me, my third and fourth time seeing them in 6 months. Overall the music was well bent toward progressive metal, and with MP as the master of ceremonies, that makes sense. I didn't love all of the music, but there was enough I knew and enough new that I heard that I enjoyed that I was never for a loss of great music. And of course it was not 20 degrees and I had no cell or internet available. That was a bonus.

New bands that I really liked, Haken and Beardfish, with The Dear Hunter thrown in. I never heard of Bigelf before this, and while the music is straight up rock, Damon Fox was interesting to watch at least. And he had the only Mellotron on the boat. I was most disappointed in Adrian and Animals as Leaders. Adrian played a lot of solo stuff, and the second set on the "main" stage was almost identical to the first set in the club, very little KC (i can't imagine he isn't sick of playing it by now, but, that's why we are there). I enjoy my Animals as Leaders CD's just fine. Live they did not have any soul or modulation. It was an in your face assult of a billion notes. Great, but they play actual songs on their CD's.

[Nov]

If Big Big Train get their live thing together in time and were invited to play on one of these cruises, that would probably be enough to tempt me and lots of other Brits to join in the fun

[PotatoSolution]

Overall the music was well bent toward progressive metal

Indeed it was.

Although I had a great time, I would preferred to see more straight-up prog acts in the vein of IQ or Big Big Train. But I understand the decision to go so predominantly with prog-metal since nowadays it's more commercial than "softer" prog.