Prog-nose

It was the International Progressive Rock Festival at Antwerp!

International?
yeah right! The only thing international about it was that there was an indian guy in the audience.

Progressive?
When we arrived there the show had begun and an amateur band was playing. There was nothing progressive about the hairy guy grunting and growling into the microphone. If anything, he had regressed a couple of rungs down the evolutionary ladder.

Festival?
A little too pompous a word to describe an event that had an audience of 150 people, I thought!

The first couple of bands that played were the typical wannabes. A guitarist so obsessed with growing his hair long, and moving his fingers as fast as he could on the fret board, that he forgot that music is supposed to sound nice. A lyricist who strung together profound sounding random phrases and a singer who was throating those words like he had a grudge against everybody in the world. After we had suffered the first couple of bands,though, things looked up. There was some really good music played. And the last band Riverside actually were good enough to do a fake exit!

The highlight of the evening, though, has to be meeting Christoph. Now I know both the King Crimson fans in the world. Beat that!