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Jen and Jeff from the US

 

John Wesley from Porcupine Tree

 

Finnish friends

 

Bagon the Italian policeman 

Riverside in the buffet

Day 5 Saturday, February 22, 2014

 

Woke up just before 6 because of noise outside the balcony, we were docked at an active port. Not yet light, but lots to do. So, I got up and went for breakfast. I had a hearty meal including an omelette, as it has to last me the day. No free meal now until I get home. Met Bagon (the Italian policeman) in the buffet, really nice guy. Back to the room to shower and get organized. I packed up and headed out and off the ship. Meet the American couple I first met at Comfort Suites, Jeff and Jen. Started talking to a man from Baltimore who was waiting for the same shuttle van. We talked about the cruise and all things prog. He told me about all the projects that Mike Portnoy is involved in, sounds like another Steven Wilson. I'll have to check his website. Now I am at the airport five hours before my flight. Nothing to do except type this up, read and listen to more music!

Final thoughts:

I know that there were 39 countries represented. I would love to know how many people actually attended (counting all the band members), what percentage of full that represented and how many more they could have hosted. Originally there were 20 bands featured, then they had a contest and selected 3 more bands to attend, but there were another 10 bands or so who were added at the last minute (possibly because they had extra rooms on board and they filled them with musicians!). Did they make money? Was it successful enough to do it again? I’d love to know how much money the various bands made? Would the bands do it again? Did the lesser known bands that were added on get paid, or did they have to pay their own way to get the exposure? Lots of questions about logistics.

It was also really different from most concerts because we were allowed to watch the sound checks for all the bands and the bands were all on board and couldn’t leave. Therefore we could see them around the ship eating, talking, mingling, going to the beach, watching other bands. We could meet and talk to them and pose for photos. We were also allowed to take as many pictures as we wanted at all the shows.

I grew up with progressive rock and fell in love with bands like: Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Genesis, and in particular Gentle Giant.

The cruise was billed as ProgressiveNationAtSea and was purported to be a cruise all about Progressive Rock, but from my experience and in my opinion not many of the bands had much to do with that genre. Transatlantic, Spock’s Beard, Riverside, Haken and Beardfish fit into what I think of as progressive rock, which is defined by Wikipedia as:

Bands abandoned the short pop single in favor of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz or classical music in an effort to give rock music the same level of musical sophistication and critical respect.

Songs were replaced by musical suites that often stretched to 20 or 40 minutes in length and contained symphonic influences, extended musical themes, philosophical lyrics and complex orchestrations.

Many of the bands on board had more to do with metal, or were shredder bands (playing as many notes as possible as fast as possible) or just hard rock bands. Not to say I didn’t enjoy them, I actually found a couple of new bands that I quite like. Maybe the genre has grown in different directions or morphed into something else, however, it wasn’t quite what I expected.

However, I really enjoyed the whole experience. It was very different from anything I have ever experienced before. It felt like a Woodstock at sea, everyone was there for the same reason, everyone got along and there was an atmosphere of togetherness that was quite unique. I got to see Riverside, Spock’s Beard, Flower Kings, Haken and Beardfish all who have either not played in Toronto or I have missed them. And that is why I went in the first place and who I wanted to see. Everything else was a bonus.

After all where else could you hear a band yell out to the audience: “Hello Atlantic Ocean!”

So thank you Mike Portnoy, if you do it again I would very much like to attend!

Countries represented and number of attendees:

Argentina  20

Australia  10

Austria  9

Belgium  3

Brazil  76

Canada  95

Chile  28

Columbia  5

Costa Rica  11

Czech Republic  2

Denmark  5

Dominican Republic  1

Ecuador  2

Finland  6

France  37

Germany  65

Hungary  2

Iceland  3

India  1

Ireland  1

Israel  5

Italy  5

Japan  2

South Korea  1

Mexico  35

Netherlands  22

Norway  17

Panama  5

Peru  3

Portugal  2

Puerto Rico  4

Slovakia  17

South Africa  7

Spain  6

Sweden  15

Switzerland  10

United Kingdom  63

United States  716

Venezuela  17

Grand Total: 1334 (over half of which were Americans)

Grand Bahama Island

Mike Portnoy

Transatlantic

Jon Anderson, ex of YES singing with Transatlantic

Day 4 Friday, February 21, 2014

Awoke up with a start at 7:00 from my internal clock. Mustering time for my excursion today (catamaran cruise to a reef for snorkeling) was at 8:40, so I had to get up and hurry. Off to the buffet for breakfast. The usual stuff, grapefruit, orange, porridge with berries and a yogurt. Back to the room to gather my stuff and found a note on my door that my excursion had been cancelled due to windy weather and rough seas. Disappointed but decided I should see something of Freeport, so I went to the excursion desk and booked the “Highlights, shopping and beach tour.” Shouldn't have bothered. The tour aboard a coach was guided by a man who told us everything we passed, from mildly interesting stuff, an oil refinery and airport, to the sublime, gas stations, insurance companies and banks, to the ridiculous, KFC, Burger King and Wendy's. We stopped at a candle making place, a small tourist market, a beach and then a large tourist shopping market. There was nothing of any interest to buy. The same tourist shit all over the Caribbean. The highlight for me was meeting an Italian traveller. He was trying to take a selfie on the beach while I was doing the same thing. I asked if he would like me to take one for him and we fell into an easy one hour conversation. His name is Bagon and he is a thirty-ish year old policeman. We talked about the cruise, the bands, traveling alone, the political climate of Italy, and lots of other things. The best laugh was when he went for the morning worship with Neal Morse (of Transatlantic and a devoutly religious man), not knowing what worship meant.

Back on the ship I watched part of the second period of the Olympic men's hockey final with three Americans, which we were leading 1-0(Canada vs US). Then I went to my room to drop off my stuff and lay down and had a two hour nap. So much for watching the rest of the game.

At 6:00 pm I headed up to the buffet for dinner before heading to the Pool Deck to see Portnoy, Sheenen, MacAlpine and Sherinian. They were again very impressive. They brought out Devin Townsend to sing a song. He was dressed in shorts and wore glasses, both seemingly very out of character. He said he knew nothing about prog 'and frankly I don't give a shit'. He says good music is just good music. He was very entertaining and funny and both sang and screamed his way through the number. At the end he said 'I don't mean any disrespect to this music I just never listened to it'.

At 7:00 pm I headed to the Spinnaker Lounge to see Haken. I was worried about the venue because if a group of people stood at the front then no one else could see. However, everyone was encouraged to sit on the floor. So I sat at the front of the stage. It was good to see the band and watch the guitarist Charles Griffiths and the drummer Raymond Hearne who I had met on the beach. They were very good, and played 'Cockroach' again. At  one point the keyboards fell off the stand and just missed Diego Tejeida's foot. As this was half way through the set and they were taking a long time to fix it, I left and went to the Star Dust Theatre to see Anathema, because I wanted to see if John Wesley was going to play with them. He didn't, but they were very good too.

At 9:00 pm back to Spinnaker to see Riverside, the band I originally came to see. I had to choose between them and Spock's Beard, but decided on them also because their first set was marred by equipment problems and as a result I don't think it was their best show. This time they were incredible. While they were doing their sound check I sat on the floor at the front again, beside two women from the Netherlands. The one was traveling with her husband but the other tagged along with them because she loves this kind of music and her husband doesn't, so she left him at home. I'd say that is a definite role reversal! She was very interesting to talk to and had seen Riverside numerous times before in Europe. The band was really tight and having fun. They played only material from the last two albums and it was great. I definitely need to revisit them. The bass player said that a fan came up to him while he was eating and politely asked 'Are you Steven Wilson?' 'No' he said, to which the fan responded 'Do you know Steven Wilson?' to which he replied 'Better than you apparently because he is this tall (shorter apparently) and he wears no shoes!'

11:00 pm The final concert was on the Pool Deck with Transatlantic and 'friends'. They played material off their first three albums, all excellent and it was obvious they were having a ton of fun. Adrian Belew came on and played one song, a King Crimson cover, off the bonus disc of Kaleidoscope. After Transatlantic finished they brought on Jon Anderson and played for another hour. They played: Tales of Topographic Oceans, Long Distance Roundaround, And You and I, and Star Ship Trooper. Anderson seemed flattered, thankful, and old but he was in good voice. Really an excellent way to end the cruise by paying respect to one of the original bands. Really impressed with the respect Transatlantic gave him. They had learned a lot of material and just played it, Portnoy was subdued and not flamboyant The show was about Jon Anderson. At the end of Starship, many other musicians came on the stage to dance and sing, Al Morse, Jimmy Keegan, Beardfish among others. At the very end Portnoy thanked all of us for coming, asked if we would be interested again next year, and said it was the best week of his life. You could tell all week that he was having a blast. Concert ended at 1:30!

As I was leaving and heading back to my room I met the couple from Kansas City, and then the two Finnish guys. We all agreed it was a night and a trip to remember. We are all sorry it is over.

Backed up my photos. Bed by 2:00.

Great Stirrup Cay

Day 3 Thursday, February 20, 2014

Up early and saw that we were arriving at land. I headed up to the buffet for breakfast while we anchored. Back in my room I watched the 'tenders'  pull up alongside. They are ferries that take passengers off the boat. Then I took a tender to Great Stirrup Cay for the day. I hung out at the beach soaking up the sun and views and reading until noon. Then I took a small boat trip that I had pre-booked for an Eco tour. It was not very good but the woman who guided us was very lively and fun. It was her birthday (probably one of the 365 for the year). They sent a teenage snorkeller into the water to find things for us to hold, sand dollar, starfish, sea star, sea cucumber, sponge and sea urchin. I met and talked to a man from New Jersey and a couple from Kansas City, she was beautiful and he had had double heart stents put in his arm two weeks before the cruise.

Spent the rest of the day snorkeling and swimming off the beach. The water was cool, but fine once you got in. The snorkeling wasn't very exciting but I did see quite a few of the regular type fish plus a black with orange dots ribbon type animal swimming along the bottom. I meet two members of Haken, guitarist Charles Griffiths and the drummer Raymond Hearne, and had a really good talk with Charles while he was watching his three year old son, Freddie, throw stones in the sea. We talked about the bands and music. I asked if they listened to Gentle Giant and he said, “Yeah way too much!” They had played with Three Friends (which is Gary Green, Malcolm Mortimer and others playing Gentle Giant music) in a festival in Italy. He said they were a little intimidated to play Cockroach in front of them). Also met the singer from Spock's Beard, Todd Leonard; Neil Morse, the singer and keyboard player from Transatlantic and the bass player from Beardfish, Robert Hansen, on the beach.

Back on board I went for a dinner of a mix of different curries and fish. Then I set off to see more bands.

7 pm. Stardust Lounge The Safety Fire Another fast, aggressive, heavy band. Not interested.

7:30 pm Atrium Jolly These guys have fun and although their music is mainly crunchy they have other more interesting elements. I have signed up for a free download of their stuff. I hope it comes through.

9:00 pm  Atrium Anneke Van Giersbergen One woman on acoustic, who would figure that? She was the woman who sang with Devin Townsend. She is gorgeous and has a wonderful voice. She sang some of her songs and a couple of covers including Cindy Lauper. Nice change of pace from all the heavy bands.

9:30 pm Adrian Belew's Power Trio Now here is a man who knows his instrument! He showed the speedster's other things you can do with a guitar. A real showman. He could play a riff and then somehow record it and have it play back so he could play another line. Really amazing. A chunky female bassist was also excellent and a great drummer. Adrian was obviously having a lot of fun. He said 'Is everyone happy? And then changed it to 'is everyone happy, happy, washie washie, all day', which was a reference to the young woman at the entrance to the buffet who said that endlessly as she sprayed your hands with disinfectant. He hammed it up for the audience. At one point he played a riff and recorded it but when he pressed the pedal for it to repeat it was gone. So he stopped and said 'Back to the drawing board for that one' and 'It  was going so well'.

11:00 pm Atrium Beardfish Another great show by them. They are by far the surprise of the cruise for me. I didn't really appreciate how talented they are and how good their music is. They have a good show and are very personable too. They were having lots of fun. I talked to Ted Leonard who was in the audience and he said that he finds them really talented and interesting.

11:30 pm Stardust Devin Townsend Project Really loud, heavy music with the gorgeous and talented Anneke singing backup. He projected his videos on a screen behind and it was great to see the video for “Juular“ while the band played it, great song.

On the way to bed I met Mike Portnoy in the hall and thanked him for organizing the cruise, he thanked me for coming. Downloaded pictures and went to sleep about 1:00.

Full Day At Sea

Day 2, Wednesday, February 19, 2014.

I woke up about 8 and had a lazy morning. Read for a bit, then went for breakfast at the buffet. Had fruit and cereal, what else is knew? Okay I had a yogurt too. Then I went and booked a couple of excursions for the next two days on the islands where we land.

The first concert of the day was at noon. The band was called Eumeria, from England. They were one of three new bands that Mike Portnoy selected from tapes that were sent to him for a chance to play on this cruise. Really good metal type band with a very strong singer.

1 pm: Haken also from England on the pool deck. An excellent band with heavy metal parts and some musical and vocal parts that are very reminiscent of Gentle Giant. The performed their singe 'Cockroach' which has multi-part harmonies like GG's On Reflection. On the way to the next show I visited the merchandise store and bought all 3 discs by Haken, Transatlantic's new triple disc set called Kaleidoscope, Spock's Beard lastest, Mammoth and Void by Beardfish and a ProgressiveNationAtSea T-shirt.

2 pm: Felix Martin. He was another of the three bands that won their way on the cruise via Portnoy's contest. He is an amazing musician from South America. Double necked guitar which he played with both hands at the same time. He had an Asian bass player with him who played a double necked bass the same way and an incredible drummer. Really a tight group. But, again it becomes tedious and repetitive after a couple of numbers because there are no melodies or lyrics. It is more about showing off, kind of a musical masturbation.

3 pm: Beardfish Really a wonderful surprise! Really excellent. Charismatic, fun and the songs they played were from a variety of albums and were all excellent. One was about Wilbert who wanted to learn ballroom dancing. Going to revisit them at home for sure.

4 pm: Bad Salad  The third band to win their way on board. From Brazil and they are a fast metal band with a lot of support on board from South Americans with yellow t-shirts.

5 pm: Riverside  I stood at the front of the stage and got some great shots. Unfortunately they had a lot of equipment problems. The singer's mic didn't work properly, then the guitar needed a new cable and the keyboards were hard to hear. It was easy to see they were very frustrated. The singer did an extended bass solo while waiting for repairs. They played mainly material from the last two discs, which have not been my favourites, but I think I have gained a new appreciation for them. The crowd was really behind them.

7 pm: Pain Of Salvation This band's lead singer couldn't come because he had flesh eating disease! They are another tight heavy band with some interesting sections. I might go to hear them again if possible.

8 pm: Spock's Beard  Really glad to finally see them. They were excellent. Amazing bass player and they were really tight. Jimmy Keegan the drummer was fantastic. They have lots in common with Gentle Giant as well.

9:30 pm: King's X  Lots of interest and fans of this band on board. They have been around for years. But I found them pretty mundane. Three piece and the leader is a black bass player with incredibly long arms. They were a straight up rock act, nothing that interested me much. His bass playing sounded much the same on every track.

10:30 pm: Flower Kings are from Sweden as well as Beardfish. Good band but like their records, they leave me a bit cold. Not enough to grasp my interest, they sound like lots of other bands from the last few decades.

11:30 pm: Portnoy, Sheehan, MacAlpine, Sherinian Excellent musicians, really incredible and unbelievably fast. At the end of the first song Portnoy said “is that enough notes for you? There are plenty more where they came from.” Ultimately though, it becomes all about the notes and speed, not about music or melody and becomes boring. It is not something I would chose to listen to at home.

I met John Wesley twice more today and had a really good talk with him about Steven Wilson. He told me that Porcupine Tree hopes to record a new album in 2016. He said that Wilson is a workaholic and confirmed that he is not married. We talked about motorcycle riding and other bands on board.

Progressive Nation At Sea Cruise

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

I flew from Toronto the day before and stayed at a Comfort Suites for the night before the cruise. I did this in case there was a snowstorm on the day I had to fly out which might have caused me to miss my cruise. I spent the afternoon and early evening exploring the South Beach area of Miami. Back at the hotel I met a nice couple from the US named Jeff and Jen. They are on the cruise too, so we talked about who we wanted to see and what we expected. I originally booked this cruise because I really wanted to see Riverside and Beardfish. These two bands and a few others were from Europe and haven't toured in North America. I had to take an unpaid leave from work for four days, but I figured it would be worth it. Afterall, when would I get the chance to see all these bands in once place and to get away from Toronto and the horrible winter we had endured. I couldn't find anyone to go with, so I went by myself.

I boarded the Norwegian Pearl by 12:30. I spent some time exploring before being able to put my luggage in my stateroom 8020. It was a really nice room with a balcony, king-size bed and a small sitting area. We had a compulsory safety meeting at 3:15. Then I had a quick light lunch. Up to pool deck, where I talked to a couple of guys from Finland. Transatlantic kicked off the cruise. As they started to play the ship left the dock.

I went for a wander around to get a better location and ran into Riverside's Peter in the stairway. Talked to him briefly and then went back up to watch Transatlantic again. Later I went walking around the deck to reposition myself again and I recognized John Wesley from Porcupine Tree. I went and introduced myself and we talked for about ten minutes about lots of things including, Porcupine Tree’s future (maybe 2016), why he was on the cruise (they told him he should come), is he going to play (they are trying to find him a spot), Rush (Alex Lifeson plays on his new disc, and he goes motorcycling with Neil Peart), me working with Alex at the gas bar back in our high school days, and all things prog.

At 7 went to the Spinnaker Lounge to see Animals as Leaders. Three very talented musicians lead by a black guitarist. Music was instrumental and didn't have melodies, just lightning fast playing. Venue was poor, because once everyone stood at the front no one else could see.

At 8 I went back to Pool Deck to see Anathema. They were very good and heavier than I thought. Slower, haunting type music. They had a female vocalist who sang backup for a few tracks but left stage for songs that she wasn't singing.

At 9 I went back to the Stardust Theatre to see Big Elf. Lead elf plays keyboards backed by guitar and bass and Mike Portnoy on drums. Very heavy music. 'I'm counting sheep, trying to get to sleep, but I can't close my eyes'. 'Money is evil, it changes people'.

At 10 I went to the front lobby and the Atrium to see a young band called Jolly. High speed metal band with an odd keyboard that didn't add much except intros and then got drowned out. They got the crowd going. They had lots of fans there who knew all the words.

Then back to the Pool Deck at 10:30 to see Canadian the Devin Townsend Project. Loud and aggressive music and he was very vocal and aggressive too. Another beautiful female singer who added some lead and fill but then left the stage.

Back to Spinnaker at 11:30 to see Periphery who are a young death metal type band. Good musicians with lots of fast head banging licks, but the singer has that awful yelling technique. He talks and sounds nice, but I don't like the singing.

I left at 12:00 and went to Stardust to see The Deer Hunter. They didn't impress me much and were kind of non-descript, so I left to go back to my room.