THE INTRO
Dutch festival organisers team up with Anathema’s management for Prog-sponsored two-day extravaganza this March.
We catch up with the goings-on at March’s Prognosis Festival, plus The Mute Gods, Syd Arthur, John Lodge, Cosmograf, Beltane Fire, Pond, Vangelis, DarWin, The End Of The Ocean and more…
TesseracT and Haken are among the acts performing at a brand new Prog-sponsored event in Eindhoven on March 22 and 23. The organisers of Prognosis say they want to bring the genre’s modern sounds to a wider audience.
“Although there are some smaller prog events, there isn’t really a huge prog fest in Holland so we talked about organising this kind of event with big names and a conference, clinics and exhibitions attached. Like Nike, our company statement is: just do it. So we did! And we’re organising this together with The Northern Music Company’s Andy Farrow (Anathema/Opeth),” says founder Paul van Berlo from Loud Noise, the promotions company also behind the annual metal festival Dynamo.
Last November, van Berlo and the Loud Noise team tested the waters with The Progressive Alliance all-dayer at the Effenaar, which featured a line-up including Ihsahn, Ne Obliviscaris and VUUR. Now he’s bringing an even bigger selection of progressive acts to the popular music venue. More performers and further details are still to be announced but so far 17 bands have been confirmed to play across two stages. Among them are Leprous, Soen, Golden Caves and The Gathering, who’ll be showcasing classic songs as part of a very special ‘Auto-Reverse’ set. Experimental cellist Jo Quail is also on the bill, along with local post-rockers Our Oceans, who’ll be making their live debut at the festival.
“There’s such good music out there and once you discover it, you want other people to experience it too,” says the founder. “We really wanted Haken and Leprous on the line-up, and TesseracT are doing really well at the moment, too. We’ve got Witchcraft, who might be a strange duck in the pond but they’re very progressive and I’m a big fan. We also talked about including one or two classic bands, but that hasn’t been possible yet this year.
“Everybody has been making suggestions. We’ve been listening to the bands, seeing if we could make a coherent running order, but we had more ideas than we could fit on the bill, so we already have a long wish list for next year! We also talked a lot about having shows in venues outside the main one but we just couldn’t make it work this year. It was enough of a challenge just to do the festival, but we’ll look at special venues, like churches or abandoned warehouses, for future editions. It’s the first Prognosis so we’ll see how people respond and what we can do next year.”
Despite an eclectic line-up, Prognosis isn’t just about live music. Festival-goers will be able
to enjoy prog-related art exhibitions and merchandise stalls at Effenaar, and there will also be industry-based conventions and musician clinics. These will run at the nearby Dynamo, a purpose-built creative space that hosts musical workshops as well as local concerts.
“The idea behind the conference is to give people more insight into the world behind the artist; what’s going on with cover art, with management, with publishing, booking and all these kinds of things,” van Berlo reveals. “There will be music professionals talking about their experiences and some Q&A sessions. We’ll even be flying in musicians to do the clinics, for example Devin Townsend will be doing two clinics even though he’s not playing the festival.”
Entry to the convention and clinics will be pre-bookable due to space restrictions, and the team hope it’ll be both inspiring and informative for everyone who attends.
For the latest announcements, visit www.prognosis-festival.com. Keep an eye out for the next issue of Prog, which will include a handy guide to the full event. NRS