夏日流水（6）: Progressive Rock音樂會 （上）

Dream Theater 是個Heavy Metal的樂隊，D的favorite。他嘮叨了無數次,一定要帶我去看一次他們的現場音樂會。所以，當他得知這個樂隊今年的巡回演出, 會在蒙城來一場的時候，真是欣喜萬分。急不可待地等到五月開始公開售票的第一天，就上網定了兩張。而且，從此，八月十二就成了大節日一樣地讓他期待，也不知道逢人就講地提過多少回了。

轉眼八月十二就到，他弟也臨時從網上尋了張退票，從渥太華趕過來看。

音樂會開始得奇早，下午六點就開場。我們是準時到了場，發現場內至少有一半空位。當晚一共有四個樂隊的表演，場內觀眾隨著每一個樂隊結束表演，新的一個開始表演，而增加，直到最後的滿場。到那時候，我才知道，那些後來的人們是多麽的明智。從六點坐到到十一點多，耳朵裏被灌入四種風格迥然，而都喧鬧激揚的音樂，對我來說，那可真不是件那麽容易消受的事。所以，我說，下次我一定要等時間至少過半了才現身的。

言歸正轉。這上篇，先看看我們號稱音樂迷的那位，“內行”看的門道吧；下篇再上我這個外行看的熱鬧。

Progressive nation 2009

It’s finally August 12th 2009, we went to see Dream Theater’s Montreal concert. The name of the tour is called: Progressive Nation 2009, and takes the bands all across the world this year. They called it Progressive Nation because of the genre of music Progressive Rock, these bands play.

British bands introduced progressive rock from the late 1960’s, such as:

King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, (to name a few) and reached its peak of popularity in the mid 1970’s.

This type of music is caracterized by long songs often more than 10minutes, complex arrangements often incorporating elements drawn from classical, jazz, and world music, lyrics that are sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based on fantasy.

4 bands played that night:

1)      Scale The Summit (Houston, Texas) a yougn band that played melodic progressive metal. They played incredible guitar solos. It sounded like Joe Satriani. It wa pretty good for a yougn band.

2)      Bigelf (Los Angeles, California): these guys were amazing, they played stoner rock/hard rock type of music. They were energetic and imaginative almost theatrical. The signer played electric organ and keyboard, it was like Deep Purple/Black Sabbath/Huriah Heep. A very nice discovery for me that night! Plus we met the band in person during the break. They were very friendly. Another surprise that night, was the drummer from headliner band Dream Theater Mike Portnoy, went on stage with Bigelf  to pay with them replacing their drummer for one song. He looked like he had a lot of fun.

3)      Zappa plays Zappa (Los Angeles, California) the son of the late great Frank Zappa. They played music like the title says from his father. The music was more rock/jazz/hard rock/blues. They were extreamly talented, we heard saxophone, flute, xylophone, keyboard, drums, persussions, bass guitar and of course electric guitar.

4)      Dream Theater (N.Y. N.Y.) being a big fan of the band, I will not sound very objective! They are very good! Musically trained at Berkley college of music, each of the members of this band totally masters its instrument, they played song from there incredible list of albums.(16) we heard impressive guitar solos, drum solos, keyboard solos, even a bass guitar solo. Melodic progressive heavy metal, was on the menu as well as some more smooth songs.

I must say I had a great time and I’m looking forward to seeing them again.