ROMANTIC WARRIORS: A PROGRESSIVE MUSIC SAGA

Romantic Warriors is a DVD that arrived in the year 2010. I must acknowledge having been aware of the production of this DVD for some time now; I became aware of it in January 2010 through Cheer-Accidents webpage, which linked to the old youtube clip. It was with much joy that I opened the envelope that contained the DVD a few months later and put the disc in my DVD player.

To me, this DVD was like a breath of fresh air. Where I live, there isn't a very large community of progressive listeners, nor are there any notable prog festivals. And although I keep hoping, none of the prog acts that I am interested have made it here since I have been in a financial situation where I could afford to see them live. So in short, my connection to the prog community has mostly been through the wires of the internet, through websites such as this one.

In the East Coast of the USA, the story is just a little bit different. Three major prog festivals occur there each year (Progday, NEARFest, and ROSFest), each of which is covered to some extent in this documentary. As well, there is Orion Studios, and record labels such as Cuneiform. Being welcomed into this world for the price tag of the DVD, including many heartfelt commentaries by bands, festival producers, and even people involved in the music industry other ways (such as those working on music technology for computers) truly gave me a sense of the prog scene as something that was alive, that people were truly passionate about.

The DVD really does a brilliant job of bringing this scene to life, and if like me you live in an area where you are not geographically connected to the prog community, this is a very rare treat. (I know I thought it was really cool seeing the Cuneiform guys taking CDs off the shelf and putting them in boxes - I was thinking - I've ordered music from these guys! So that's where they come from!)

But that's not the only treat of this album. The live performances by the bands presented are quite thrilling. I was impressed, in particular, by Cabezas de Cera, DFA, and Maschera di Cera, whom I had not heard before. It was also quite a joy to see Phideaux, Deluge Grander, and Cheer-Accident performing live, each of which are bands from the modern era that I am quite interested in. I am convinced that I must find a way to see Deluge Grander live, for they sounded magnificent live - if the live performances that the footage from this film were pulled from were released, I know I would purchase it. The only downside with the live performances on this disc were that, due to the format of the documentary, no complete songs were played. This does not mean that the emotion of the band was not captured - for example, watching Dan Britton (again of Deluge Grander) playing The Solitude of Miranda on guitar was quite breathtaking.

There are even some moments in this DVD that made me laugh - such as when Dan was complaining about how difficult for new artists to compete with re-releases of the '70s masters (I had never thought about that), or Roine Solt conveying how odd it is when fans dance to his music.

Ultimately, to any who are lovers of this wonderful genre of music, particularly those interested not only in the past masters but those who are carrying the torch today and the direction that the genre is facing, and the passion of those in the underground scene, this DVD is an excellent item to own.