PROGFEST '95 DAY ONE

Progfest is the largest progressive rock festival in the world, it started in 1993 due to the enormous support from USA prohead #1 Greg Walker! This video is from 1995 featuring Ars Nova from Japan, White Willow from Norway and Solaris from Hungary, what an amazing and exciting line-up! The video starts with tasteful introduction scenes: the music hall in Los Angeles, the progheads from all over the world, band members, the equipment like the ubiquitous Mellotron M400, rehearsals, a progrock market and pictures from progrock magazines (like Progression) and several other progrock items.

And then ... ARS NOVA enters the stage. Great to see those tiny female Japanese musicians with their huge equipment like a wide range of keyboards and the impressive Rickenbacker bass guitar. And how sexy they look wearing very long hair and very short skirts and trousers...! But back to the music, the trio Ars Nova plays melodic and classical inspired, keyboard driven instrumental progrock delivering strong, fluent interplay and lots of splendid and varied keyboards flights (organ, piano, synthesizers, harpsichord). The drummer plays tight and powerful and the bass player with some jazzy undertones. This is wonderful and very pleasant prog with lots of changing atmospheres and musical surprises!

WHITE WILLOW their sound is a compelling blend of folk (violin, acoustic guitar), classical (piano), rock (fiery electric guitar), symphonic (vintage synthesizers like the Minimoog along the Hammond and Mellotron). The music is very intense, adventurous and varied and has in my opinion some echoes from both King Crimson (dark and complex parts) as Renaissance (melodic blend of classical and symphonic and dreamy female vocals). But White Willow doesn't sound derivative, discover their unique musical progrock adventure, including a swinging bass solo and some strong improvisations.

SOLARIS is my highlight on this video, what an exciting prog: splendid interplay (flute, guitar, keyboards), great soli (spectacular Minimoog runs), a propulsive and dynamic rhythm-section and lots of amazing shifting moods and breaks. Solaris blends classic, folk, rock and symphonic in a very fascinating way and the crowd loved these crafty and enthousiastic Hungarian musicians. From all three bands on this video Solaris is the most explosive to watch on stage, WHAT AN EXCELLENT PROGROCK BAND THIS IS!!!