Some observations

Please explain to me how being booed off the stage is a good thing? What you say makes little sense to me. I've never booed anyone off stage, personally, but I have seen it happen, and it ain't pretty. And it usually does occur because the bands are so disparate in sound and philosophy that it detracts from the concert as a whole.

 

And as far as even seeing a back-up band, it usually is of no interest to me. If I've come to see Pink Floyd play for three hours (and I have), I couldn't care less what came before. However, I've seen some absolutely great concerts where the headliner and back-up were paired excellently. I can recall a Jethro Tull concert when they were backed  up by Fairport Convention -- marvelous. Or Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B. King -- good lord, I thought I died and went to heaven when they both came out for the encore. It all depends.

 

Svetonio wrote: RoeDent wrote: I was just listening to a radio interview with Andy Tillison, of The Tangent, and he made some very interesting points about how the big prog bands of the 70s don't support the current generation of bands that they inspired. "Their legacy isn't some digital re-release of their 1973 greatest album, their legacy is us. The Tangent, The Flower Kings and Big Big Train are what Genesis left behind." It's these bands that are keeping the best Music (with a capital M) alive, and a new generation is starting to come through now, such as Haken and Synesthaesia, that will still be making music in 30 years' time. What do you think? Could the "stars" of 70s prog do more, or be more vocal, in supporting the future of the genre they laid the foundations for? Of course they can. For example, the 70s bigs such as Phil Collins or Peter Gabriel could easily set up a foundation to help young Prog talents, as a charity.  However, the basic problem lies in the fact that the Prog Rock is still considered as just a part of entertainment called rock'n'roll, as a part of show business in which the rules are set long ago, and those rules are strictly and not inclined to help those virtually unknown newcomers "only" because they are  talented young musicians with artistic and proggy but uncommercial ideas; on contrary. We all know that long ago that our beloved genre already become Art. Now prog artists are perform at jazz festivals; jazz has long been defined as a genre of art music, but progressive rock is still not officially (whatever that means) declared as an Art. Simply put, the progressive rock is yet not strictly separated from "the great rock and roll party". Until that happens, it will stay to be practically impossible to reach a serious support for young prog talents. For example, covering the studios' costs for talented young prog bands and solo artists, also for CDs and vinyl LPs printing and for a promotional stuff and costs of gigs but also gala events such as some new prog festivals, that should be financed, in order to popularize the art music such as prog-rock among the kids, from the budgets of cities or states; thus unprofitable, but with a huge importance for the culture of that community. One can say that this is a pointless moaning, but one should take a peek at the figures which clearly show how much money those so-called "conceptual art" projects received from various funds and NGO sector every year.

Erm. 

Gabriel has WOMAD and World Records. Collins has the Little Dreams Foundation. Wanna pick two different Prog Stars?

All music is commercial, including Classical, Folk and Jazz.

Not all Jazz is considered to be Art Music. Prog is Rock and Roll, it is not Art Music and never will be. You cannot separate Prog Rock from Rock.

State funded Prog - who the hell would want that? 

Art's grants may seem like a lot of money but they are thinly spread.

Here's an idea - let's get Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Spotify, YouTube, etc., to actually pay for the production of the music they "support".

 

This !

Fripp Gabriel Eno and others, have done a lot in support of music, not allways prog, but that just shows that stickers are a fan/media thing, not important for the artist, they tend to want to move on to explore new stuf.

Several Progressive Rock musicians/innovators of the 70's have attitudes about what they've created in the past and I think it might be important to consider why that happens. If you've progressed beyond "Thick as a Brick" and it sometimes annoys you , it's more than likely and totally out of boredom. Boredom of yourself and the artist you became that you didn't want to be. In the end, you felt that the real you and the communication of music you offered to everyone was only half of the audience or even less. You're pegged as an artist that wrote 3 or 4 amazing concept albums and you are faced with living up to those expectations which please the majority of your crowd. The bulk of your crowd is your personal "in crowd" and they attended your show to hear what you would personally like to leave behind so you can continue as an honest artist, without foolish pressures leading into moronic decisions on your own behalf to continue as the artist you used to be. In the present, "Neo Prog" bands are continuing to carry the torch for your innovative music and you might fine that lacks in glory because you are under pressure to reproduce it yourself.


This is not a sincere way of making art. An artist CAN be very sincere , create interesting music, and many people in the world will say..."Oh, he/she is not like they used to be"...or "I was expecting a bit of the same dosage found in previous works". Those people just have to walk away because the act of pressuring art and asking for the same thing every time....is forcing something to re-occur and is far from a natural process to create art which WILL mostly likely be something different each time you create. So this is not natural to begin with and then people wonder why the artist is not creating something worthwhile , instead of realizing that the artist is still just as good, but placing their energy into a new project , so they can breath and move on. In the case of Univers Zero disappearing for a few years and then returning with "The Hard Quest", the reaction was harsh and directly tied in with how important "Heatwave" was to everybody and how "The Hard Quest" was a lame attempt at resurfacing as a band. This is how a majority of people feel and if you don't believe me, you gotta get out more, but seriously .."The Hard Quest" is a different style of composition. It's more flowing and less sporadic than their other albums, but because it was released a few years after "Heatwave" it earns the medal for harsh comments which all revolve around the concept that the band are being dismissive of what they did before. This is what an audience can do to you.