Originally Posted by Trollheart

You're consistently avoiding our points. You say Arena, Millenium, Dream ****ing Theater for god's sake and Spock's Beard are minnows, then "prove" that by talking about some tiny prog band (whom you don't name) who "couldnt' fill 50 seats"! What does that prove?

Sure, prog rock is not as popular as it was in the seventies, but come on! It was a different time, and back then prog was new, and by new I mean really new. Nobody was doing what the likes of Keith Emerson or Peter Gabriel were doing, and it was pioneering stuff. But if prog rock was not still popular now, then how could events like Progfest exist and make money? Prog is still popular, just not mainstream.

And if you mean those bands are minnows in the overall music world, then yes, but so were the big prog bands back then when compared to the likes of the Stones, Beatles, Zep etc. So nothing has changed there. Prog albums were never consistently hitting number one, in the charts all the time, massive gigs (well yes probably but I'd venture to say not as big as any of the aforementioned) or screaming girls following them. But prog has always been something of an outsider, even when it was at its height, and that has not changed.

Have you the guts, I wonder, to go to progarchives, look at their top lists for last year or any of the preceding, and then come back and say none of those bands know how to play or compose music?

It seems like you're not so much sad that prog is not popular, you're almost gloating that it is. Whereas we want to, and do, find new prog bands we can enjoy, you seem content to say no no there are none and leave it at that. That's a fine attitude for someone in your position to have.

As for SB, yes, ask the man, woman or blue thing from Centaurus IX in the street who they are and they'll shrug, probably would about Anthrax or Skirillex or Saxon or The Drifters. Ask that question among prog fans and you'll get a whole different answer. It's all about context.