Your prog rock stories

I've only met Allan Holdsworth, Kenny Wheeler and Bill Bruford, all of whom were normal and nice and perfectly willing to sign the CDs I showed them. Bruford (then appearing with Earthworks) gave a public interview in an Oxford (UK) bookshop - it must have been about seven years ago. There were no more than seven or eight people in the room, and the things Bill said were very interesting, but I didn't really dare to ask questions myself (e.g. 'Would you ever like to work with an electric guitarist again' - the question which obsesses me the most), as I'm naturally shy and all the others present behaved like jazz experts who'd known Bill for years! (Plus they were all British, and I'm Belgian by birth, Bill!)
I also saw the great Kevin Coyne glare at me on one of the main streets in Louvain, the afternoon before I was going to attend his (superb) solo concert. And, living in Oxford, I've seen that singer from Radiohead a couple of times (what's his name again) - the second time HE glared at me too! (What do they all have against me? Do I seem to be mocking them?)

My big prog story is working with Hugh Syme a while back and him giving us backstage passes to meet Geddy and Alex before the show last summer.

E

Edited by E-Dub - March 07 2008 at 22:24

And meeting Jadis and Enchant on a concert in Bonn was great too, Martin Orford was a great guy to talk to, during the concert me and my two friends were the front row so it was kind of relaxed LOL - when Enchant played I kept begging them to play "Nighttime Sky" - after 10 Songs the singer said that it's time for a request by the audience and held his mike down and I yelled "Nighttime Sky" LOL. It was so f**king cheesy LOL (but an amazing performance)

April 21, 1974 waiting to enter the Université de Montreal Genesis gig having arrived early, I am standing next to this tall quiet fellow with long hair and a velvet jacket who seems familiar and is trying to go through a security gate. “You are Mike Rutherord?!”, I blurt! Big Big smile and off he goes. During the show, I was sitting 5^th row front & center while into Suppers Ready, when I turn around to look behind me just as Gabriel states “A Flower?” and a massive white light explosion occurs (allowing Gabe 3 seconds to jettison a costume) but I remember seeing the crowd “blinded by the light”, jaws agape, eyes closed. A stunning moment imprinted in my mind. Years later, at Gabriel 2 nd album tour in Montreal, a friend and I were waiting near our seats waiting for the show to begin when a totally bald  guy passes near me,” Good evening Mister Gabriel! Any new musicians with you tonight?” He stopped, smiled, and listed the entire group and merrily waltzed away. My friend, to this day still mumbles” that was Peter Gabriel…!!!!!” whenever we meet. (I knew he was bald because I had read that his then wife had an affair and felt bad about, so she told him and she chopped her hair off. Peter had shaved his head out of forgiveness, by this time the famed Genesis masks were a thing of the past).

Met and had dinner with Eddie Jobson, Phil Manzanera and Rick Wills when touring for Roxy Music. Eddie was stunned to know that Curved Air’s Metamorphosis played more often than any Roxy tune on Montreal rock station CHOM. He immediately applied for royalties!

Met Bodin and Reingold of the Flower Kings after their 2005 gig in Montreal. Super NICE , decent guys. Bodin in particular, a sensitive (we talked about the pains of divorce) and funny dude.  A true pleasure.   Met two gents from Italian symph band CAP in Milan 2003 , long wonderful dinner and drinks, singing their songs in the drive back to my hotel. Amazing people.

It turns out that my brother is the keyboard player in Frost*

That said, I'm not sure if attacking him when we were children and farting on his head constitutes a prog related story...

Majestic_Mayhem wrote: Shortest prog rock story; Once upon a time I stumbled upon a Rush track called YYZ. 15 years later, I discovered Prog Archives. And we lived happilly everafter. The end.

The best story so far.

High-five-ing with Trond Gjellum (drummer of Panzerpappa) during the orgasmic end of the Magma concert I saw last autumn!

Got a decent one!

October, 1974.  I was a sophomore music major who lived, breathed and slept Yes/ELP/Zappa!  My roommate Mark was also a music major; a bassist who played a Ricky with a pick and was also a fan of the great music coming out of Europe at the time.  In fact, it seems like every band he turned ME onto and deemed "worthy" has over the decades turned into progressive sacred-cows:  Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson & Van Der Graf Generator!  He somehow intuitively knew that these bands would stand the test of time...

Anyway, I'd very much enjoyed his Gentle Giant albums (and have since gotten the catalog on CD!) ~ and didn't hesitate when the opportunity arose to see Gentle Giant play the Whiskey on the Sunset Strip!  We drove up from the "OC" (Chapman U) to Hollywood in Mark's "bassist-sized" Econoline and got into the sizable line to get in the door.

From what I remember, we were blown away by the performance.  Gentle Giant experts, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember them playing "musical chairs" of sorts and playing super-well on each other's instruments. We happened to have attended the concert with a guy from upstate New York (not a music major, but a total FZ FREAK!), and he had brass balls compared to the rest of us laid-back Southern California surfer-musicians.  We're getting ready to leave after the last encore, when "Upstate" says, "Hey guys, I got us backstage (upstairs)...get yer' asses up here!"

We walk into the infamous upstairs room...which is covered in autographs, which as amazing in and of itself.  Janis, Hendrix, Bowie...you name it, they'd signed that wall.  The free beer is flowing...and there's the band ~ casually sitting around shooting the sh*t with anyone!  We make a bee-line first to Kerry Minnear, who was quite gracious for ten to fifteen minutes ~ I'm sure we came off as cross between pompous music-majors and the Chris Farley character where he interviews the stars..."Remember when you recorded Octopus?  That was cool, man!"

We then chatted up Derek Schulman (after Minnear broke away form our clutches!)...for another ten minutes before feeling the tap of the bouncer's finger on our collective shoulder!  As we stood on the street minutes later, we all looked at each other and said, "did that really just happen???" :)~

My buddy still plays/teaches (acoustic) semi-pro, up in the Bay Area.  I've been giving him "little tastes" of  new prog...he digs it! 

All the prog shows I got in to see at bars I was too young to be in
Atlanta Agora in particular, Steve Hackett (Cured), King Crimson (Discipline), Bruford (just post Holdsworth but good), Pat Metheny (Offramp).
Allan Holdsworth (i.o.u. at of all places a punk hole in wall, 688 club, got backstage, autographs)
More Dixie Dregs shows than I can count, another benefit of growing up in Atlanta, even did a volunteer roadie thing when they played at Dekalb College.
My first prog concert, Kansas at Georgia Tech.
Fred Frith with Skeleton Crew.
Now I'm just an old fart who doesn't get out to concerts much and have missed some good ones.

One of my last was Porcupine Tree on the Deadwing tour and it's not a fond memory, artifically standing room only, the balcony area with seats was closed off (I'm too old for that kind of crap) there were three guys standing behind me more interested in trashing the band loudly than watching the show (why the hell did you bother to buy tickets? spoiled rich kids I can only guess) an then no t-shirts for sale .

Around the late 1980's, I was working as a central heating engineer around the Clapham area of London. I picked up a job one day with the surname Latimer on it, and realised when I got there it was Andy Latimer's house.
The door was opened by his American wife, and straight away I noticed a Snow Goose gold disk hanging on the wall by the door. I blurted out 'oh my god is this Andy Latimer's house?' and his wife replied 'umm yeah'. I goes 'I'm a massive massive Camel fan!' and she goes all nonchantly 'oh .. how nice for you.' and walks away up the stairs - shot down in flames hehe.
Anyway I was waiting in the hallway and glanced into the front room and saw a multitude of very expensive acoustic guitars standing there, then the man himself came down the stairs. He was as nice as can be to me, but I didn't once have the balls to mention what a big fan I was of his. He made me a cup of coffee while I fixed his central heating, and we chatted away about nothing in particular. I still have the job document he signed when I finished the job.

Another small story I have that makes me smile when I think about it. Around the early 80's I was a member of the Marquee club in London, and I used to go there 2 or 3 times a week to see whoever was on (saw Marillion, Pendragon, IQ, all the new wave of British prog acts that were coming up at the time). I used to go whenever Marillion were playing and one time I saw Fish sitting on his own at the bar, looking extremely pissed off with something. Having had a few drinks already I walked up to him and said 'Hi Fish, I'm a massive Mariilion fan, could I buy you a drink?'. He turned round and looked me square in the eye, and said very quietly and calmly 'f**k off.' then turned around again. This as you can imagine left me red-faced but provided my friends at the time with much hilarity :)