Prog is some way away from my home turf, but I went to see Stephen Wilson tonight at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, with a couple of regular gig buddies.
The opening part was very crisp, and the whole gig was very well executed. I do wonder about gigs where there is a video backdrop, which is in sync with the music – how much is really really live ? The drummer was great, and Nick Beggs (yes, from Kajagoogoo) was fab on bass.
One style note – it is a long time since I was at a gig where people were wearing Paiste or Zildjan t-shirts. That made it feel very prog, as did the couple in front of me – they spent most of the first half snogging as if they were in the back row of a movie theatre! Back to 1978, everyone!
Prog rock? Snogging?
(Shome mishtake shurely?)
The snogging was Most Odd – the couple were (at a guess) in their twenties, but were snogging away with the enthusiasm of people who are having their first go at it, and entirely ignoring the fact that they were in my line of sight for the stage.
Peculiar.
Are you saying the snogging involved a woman? At a prog concert?
yes, it was very odd
This women/prog thing is questionable. I think the reason why women don’t attend prog gigs might be precisely because of the male audience doing a bit of gatekeeping. Not directed at anyone here, but just an opinion from me. The blokes scare the women off: this is a man’s music.
Although also, sometimes it might just be crap music being intellectually justified by daft blokes like me (see: Mars Volta review, although I genuinely love that).
I dunno. Just… food for thought.
Nah! Gatekeeping? Nah! No women that I know would ever be put off something just because men liked it – the ones who don’t like prog just think it’s crap! And, in fact, that matches a significant percentage of the correspondents on this site, male female or undeclared.
Funnily enough, my sister is a fan of Yes, Van der Graaf, solo Hammill (more so than VdGG, probably) and the proggier end of Rundgren/Utopia – so maybe it’s genetic!
Edith: for avoidance of doubt – my comment above regarding snogging was a mild jest, playing into the cliché…
As was mine.
All good, don’t worry… people here are at least open to talking about things in a different way… which itself is very prog!
Huzzah! Keeps me coming back!
I’ve noticed a few things recently. As part of the Apple+ subscription I get access to Prog Magazine and Metal Hammer (plus zillions of others). The latter is definitely not in my wheelhouse normally, and prog is something that I like more and more these days. Strange given that blues and soul is my background… anyway, the passion that those two titles have is WAY beyond the dusty, musty feel of Uncut and (somewhat) Mojo. There’s an actual feeling that something exciting is going on… and it’s got me listening.
The other observation is that metal is a very inclusive tribe of people. It’s probably been that way since NWOBHM. All the misfits gravitate there (which is basically: almost anyone). Many of the bands have political charge to their music. It welcomes all comers.
So: the reason there were people snogging at the S-Willy concert is because he’s got one foot in prog, one foot in metal. (with pop somewhere over all of that.) He’s very good at being this man in the middle of everything.
(although Mojo and Uncut rule when it comes to cover CDs! Plus I like Wilco, and Uncut is basically Wilco monthly).
Mrs. T was looking forward to it but was ill at the last moment.
As the women will tell you (obviously somewhere other than the gig itself), it’s the only time that the queue for the gents is longer.
Hmmm, in my experience, that myth died on a hill of prostatic hypertrophy some years ago. Any audience of over 60s, anyway.
Arf!
I recall the gents toilet queue at Ashley Hutchings’ 80th was certainly longer than the ladies.
I went to the Palladium with @feedback_file last Tuesday. I’ve seen him twice before and this was the proggest night – he had a lot of lighter, poppier songs but didn’t do them. The first section was the whole of the new album, then a break, then a lot of his more intense stuff including some deep cuts from Porcupine Tree. Excellent night!
Oh and oddly the support was Al Murray, well known as a prog fan, doing pub landlord. I’m not a great standup fan but he did make me laugh. I like Al but more for his history stuff – the podcast with James Holland is great.
This one opened the second set.
@el-hombre-malo
On the t-shirts: would those not be more “very 1970s” than “very prog”? Like drummers who wear Kicker boots?
@fitterstoke – I don’t go to many prog gigs, but I have been at a few gigs in recent years that would count as 70s gigs – Wishbone Ash for one, and a Classic Rock Covers band. At those, I saw plenty Led Zep, Stones, Thin Lizzy t-shirts, but none representing Cymbal manufacturers.
Interesting – I would never have thought of cymbals as a particularly prog part of the drum kit: but there you go. I suppose I’m not a drummer, so I cannae say…
Are there gong brands?
I believe there’s a market in flying teapots.
Oh wrong Gong.
I have a “Henry Cow” T-shirt for gigs. Sets the tone. But when I wear it otherwise, strangely, nobody seems to know them. I like to think of their delight when they find a track on YouTube.
I do Love You Madly, Vincent!
Aww, shucks ….
You know you are at a prog gig when the clapping has a complex time signature.
Have an up! In 17/8!
Can’t imagine this happening at a King Crimson concert.
As @Twang mentioned the Palladium gig was great – loud as fuck and very very proggy which started to wear me down by the end. I love SW but prefer the less ‘metal’ side of his material of which there was precious little on the night. But he is very much his own man and the musicianship is always extraordinary – Adam Holzman on keys brings a jazz sensitivity on keys but then he has played with Miles – thus emphasising the obvious link in the band between Kind of Blue and Too Shy Shy!
Oho! So was it the prog that wore you down – or the metal? Answer that and stay fashionable!! 🙂
I had the same experience when I saw them at the Cambridge Junction years ago. I went to the bar and waited for my proggy chum.
The same a few years later at the Scala, although I bailed and took the last fast train home.
There wasn’t a third attempt.
My fashion sense is impeccable- just ask Mrs F (well maybe don’t). It was the preponderance of hard edged metal/prog tracks that I found a bit of an ordeal but still enjoyed it overall
Arf! It always amuses me when some of the critics on here* use “pixies and fairies”, etc, as shorthand to express their dislike of prog as a whole – when there’s a whole world of crystalline, brutal prog-metal out there, which could slice a pixie in half!
*not you, of course, Mr FF
Your passionate, Glaswegian prog snoggers at the Royal Concert Hall have really got me pondering-
Are there are any kinds of gigs where a little snogging would not be out of place? Or indeed encouraged by the artists?
I also got curious about the etymology of the word.
Romeo and Juliet didn’t snog, And neither did Eloise and Abelard or indeed Anthony and Cleopatra.
i found a useful quote about the history of the word snog on Stack Exchange
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142490/where-does-the-word-snogging-come-from
Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, Fifth Edition (1961) suggests a slightly different etymology:
snogging, be or go. To be or go courting a girl; to be or go love-making: RAF: since ca. 1937. Partridge 1945, ‘Snog is perhaps a blend of snug and cod (to flatter or kid a person).’
Was there any snogging in Brief Encounter?
And how many songs mention snogging?
The Beautiful South do..
Our paths will cross some day
Our paths will cross some day
While you’re out jogging and I’m sat snogging
Some fool on a lakeside bench
There’s the People’s Poet Rik’s inspiring spoken word intro to Living Doll:
“Hey kids, stop snogging and pay attention to me!
‘Cause if you’re a wild-eyed loner standing at the gates of oblivion, hitch a ride with us.
‘Cause we′re on the last freedom moped out of Nowhere City, and we haven’t even told our parents what time we′ll be back!
So put on your dancing trousers, and get down to the utter, utter King of Rock and Roll, CLIFF RICHARD!”