Be Prog my Friend! 2024
26-27/09/2024
Venue: Poble Espanyol
Promoter: Madness Live
Photography: Josep Ma Llovera
Writer: David Sàez and Helena Moreno
The return of this festival, even in a scaled-down, less ambitious version, but presumably a financially sustainable one, was quite special. For some, even more so than Puigdemont’s “el retonno”.
Plenty of familiar faces among the prog regulars, which serve not just to confirm that a few of us are indeed freaks, but also showed just how eager people were to reconnect with this festival. There were also some new, younger faces than usual — perhaps because the bill leaned more heavily towards metal than prog this time. That, presumably, is what makes this financial viability possible, securing future editions. We also noticed a bigger female presence in the crowd than has been usual.
On Friday the 27th, Italy’s Kingcrow had the responsibility of opening the festival, coming to present their new album: Hopium. And, truth be told, they delivered an excellent opener, with an energetic live set full of great interaction with the crowd. A tremendously consistent and thoroughly entertaining show. Magnifico e bravo.
Representing the local scene were Obsidian Kingdom, returning to live activity. A risky choice by the organisers, since the Catalan scene has bands that have stayed more in step with the current moment, but presumably having already played the 2016 edition and being a project with a track record of international presence tipped the balance in favour of including them on the bill.
Technical problems dogged their entire set, which they had to start knowing full well about the difficulties, but without any complexes and while staying professional. It quickly became clear there would be real shortcomings in the vocal presence and in picking out certain instruments when the band played as an ensemble. Despite a solid execution, they couldn’t quite connect with the crowd, giving more than they could really deliver; even so, the audience stayed very supportive of the band, even though they weren’t managing to stir much real emotion.
Pure Reason Revolution also started out with technical problems, which they got past professionally and without any fuss, calmly flagging them to their crew. So as the set went on, we got to enjoy a musical consistency that kept drawing the audience in. Perhaps because there was so much anticipation for this band, little attention was paid to the limited interaction between its members, what there was of it mostly channelled through Jon Courtney. Even so, it has to be said that the songs’ execution — not just from their new work “Coming Up to Consciousness” — was full of delicacy and elegance
Pure Reason Revolution
Don’t be fooled by his colourful look, closer to the aesthetic of a rapper or a reggaetón figure — behind that extravagant outfit is a musician of enormous talent, projecting into the future (and the present) a funk-fusion proposal, with a coat of modern production, that pulls together the best legacy of the ‘bass heroes’ — Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller or Victor Wooten — as well as the catchy, forceful style of Prince and other heroes of P-funk.
And the main event of the day came courtesy of Haken. A special, nearly three-hour show, with no real ups and downs beyond a brief drum solo and some filler keyboard noodling. In the first part, they played their album “Fauna” (2023) in full, closing it out with the song “Crystallised”, which brought back memories of their performance at the Poble Espanyol bandstand back in the 2015 edition.
Despite a slightly muddy sound in the front rows, they drove the crowd wild with the second part of the show, packed with band classics, led by the great rapport of Ross Jennings, since the rest of the band always stay fairly restrained. So they gave it their all, despite looking a little tired, which luckily showed absolutely nothing in the show itself or in their excellent execution.
On the festival’s second day, Saturday the 28th, we got to enjoy Todomal, bringing their atmospheric plateau doom to our shores, and my, was it something. Tremendously forceful, solid as a rock, delivering their slow but relentless compositions in a standout, tightly welded way. That said, the style lets them keep a fair distance from the crowd, which seems to suit them just fine. We’re left wanting to see this show at night or indoors, so as to appreciate the projection show in more depth
Next, Florian Magnus Maier, the voice of Alkaloid, gave us proof that his Spanish lessons have paid off nicely. The rest of the band’s musical studies probably have too, though they didn’t get much chance to show it off. Was it a bad show? No, but not a good one either. They got the job done, nothing more. Probably because their songs are hard to get a handle on and carry a certain gratuitous quality in the writing, and also because of the horrendous sound they were putting out, which we doubt any sound engineer could have come out of looking good, given that raw material.
By contrast, Dødheimsgard must have been the festival’s most pleasant surprise for anyone who didn’t know them, filed for reference under Norwegian black metal. An enjoyable set with a friendly take on the style. But the band really had only one star: the histrionic Vicotnik, who blended the best of Peter Gabriel’s Genesis years with the madness of the late clown Jango Edwards. With those tools and a consistently strong musical performance on stage, they had the crowd eating out of their hand.
And the closing set came from Pain of Salvation. Whatever divided opinions Daniel Gildenlöw’s band stirs up, everyone should agree they delivered an excellent concert, one that delighted the audience — except those who have always found this band unbearably pretentious, who simply tolerated it this time round.
With overwhelming energy, they put the cherry on top with a show that ran through songs from every era of the band, and which, within their own style, was pretty much perfect. That said, the choice to close with “The Passing Light of Day” was, at the very least, up for debate, as it handed plenty of ammunition to those who accuse this artist of being overly pompous.
Either way, Barcelona has got a prog-tagged festival back, one that offers high-quality, top-level music. All we can do is welcome its return and hope it can keep going, even in this format, which won’t allow for the very biggest names but does bring in bands that are otherwise hard to catch within our borders.