Beside the popular bigger festivals throughout Europe there are some smaller festivals that are worth visiting them. Be Prog! My Friend is one of the latter. A small festival that focuses on the more progressive side of the metal scene, which is held in Poble Espanyol in Barcelona, only a 15 minute walk of  the subway, although it went up and on such a hot day it was quite thirsty trip.

Day 2 

Day 2  started off with the Australian talented Plini (***), which we missed almost due to having to take a detour to get to the festival. Plini was the ideal starter, easy going sound, but not so easy music that went from jazz to djent. Sometimes it sounded as matinee music, so grab a drink, enjoy the sun and the music. Gazpacho (**), another band I didn’t know but it seemed they are well-known in the scene. They are playing some more art rock and that’s exactly how it sounded. The music was not so metal, the songs were very long and became a bit boring in the long end. This was stuff for the real die hards, not really for me. I like it when it has some more “grinta” in the songs, sorry dudes.

Time for the Sons Of Apollo (****) , a band a lot of people had been waiting for, as the line for the signing session was incredible long. From the opener God Of The Sun and Signs Of The Time until the Dream Theater cover Just Let Me Breathe they performed as it was their last day on earth. This is not a band that is just doing their stuff, they have fun together. From the incredible frontman Jeff Soto to the crazy escapades from Bumblefoot and Portnoy  to the more subtle Sherinian (well, you can’t run around with a bunch of keyboards on stage, duh) and the bass power from Sheehan, this has become a very oiled machine. Furthermore they brought excellent versions of Oblivion, Labyrinth, Lines In The Sand (another Dream Theater cover) and the final song Coming Home. The audience was happy, Sons Of Apollo was happy, quite an impressive show.

The headliner of the day was Steve Hackett (***), former Genesis guitarist and 156 years old or something like that. I wondered what it would be, slow prog rock songs or more uptempo songs. I was quite surprised that the opening song Please Don’t Touch was already an uptempo song and the sounds Steve Hackett got out of his guitar are just so warm and wonderful, something I miss these days with bands. A lot of musicians can all play impressively good, but it has no soul, no sound of their own, and that’s where Steve Hackett kicks in. On stage Nad Sylvan took up the vocals while Steve tried to entertain the audience with some Spanish words written out on a paper. In the set also some Genesis songs passed by like Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, Firth of Fifth and the finishing song Los Endos. Steve Hackett was a nice surprise for me.

And once again an afterparty, now with the Swedish men of Burst (**). A cult band which reformed especially for this festival. When they started it sounded good, though after a while it was too much screaming and it played sloppy. They did their best but you could see they haven’t played together for quite a while. The die hards loved it and others possibly due to beer. This could have been done better.

So the final conclusion, a very nice cozy festival with great bands, there is for everybody something too find. I will try to be back next year. Meanwhile while leaving the festival there was a party starting next to the festival, something to do with the gay pride, well that was quite a contrast. Barcelona, you are strange …