by Blake | Mar 25, 2017 | Prog Report
It had still been fairly recent since Mike Portnoy left Dream Theater in 2011 when he got involved in a new side project that would add to his ever-expanding Prog world. Of course, Neal Morse was immediately along, with guitar legend Steve Morse and the brilliant bassist Dave LaRue. The group would go outside the known prog and shred world and approach alt-pop singer Case McPherson, from the band Alpha Rev, and invite him to join the group, since the goal was to do a band that had as much pop as it did prog influence. The band would become Flying Colors and they would release their self-titled debut on March 26, 2012.
Casey McPherson tells the story of getting contacted and joining the band.
“I wasn’t really sure if this guy Bill [Evans] was that called me. He calls me and says ‘you know we were thinking about getting the guy from Muse but we thought maybe about trying you out because Portnoy mentioned that he liked you and that you’d be the perfect guy for the job’. Last time I saw Mike was When we were making records both at a studio up in New York he was finishing there. I guess that was maybe his last record with Dream Theater and I was finishing my record that was on Hollywood Records at the time and so you know, he and I kept up a little bit but he had Bill reach out to me and he said ‘man I want to send you a song idea that Neal and Steve had kind of come up with and see what you think and see if there’s something that interests you’. So he sends me a 15 minute long song. Well, I’m just like Holy S***, this is amazing! I mean because I’m used to dealing with three minute songs and when I get to four or five minutes people look at me and they’re like oh man what are you doing this way too long. So I was like, this is going to be great, I’ve got a creative outlet. I was on a label and there were some problems legally whether I should do it or not. But I just went for it. And it all worked out.”
Songs like “Kayla”, “The Storm” and “Infinite Fire” are instant classics. The band would release the follow-up ‘Second Nature’ in 2014 and are currently working on their 3rd album.
The post Flying Colors debut album released 5 years ago appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
by Blake | Mar 25, 2017 | Prog Report
Following their triumphant performances on Cruise to the Edge, Spock’s Beard have made the announcement on Facebook that Nick D’Virgilio, original drummer and one-time singer for the band, will play drums for the group on their next album. Prior to the cruise, pervious drummer Jimmy Keegan left the group where D’Virgilio filled in for their performances on the ship this past Feb. He now returns back behind the kit where he sat from 1995-2010. D’Virgilio also plays with Big Big Train and The Fringe.
This is what the band had to say, “Spock’s Beard is super excited to announce that the amazing Nick D’Virgilio has agreed to play on our next album! Nick of course is well known to SB fans as our former drummer/lead singer/all around awesome dude as well as for working with artists such as Genesis, Mike Keneally, Peter Gabriel and Big Big Train among others. Nick was with us when we first started and we are over the moon to have him back with us for this album! We know you’ll be as excited as we are to hear what we will be able to create with him back pounding the skins. We’ve been writing new material and plan to start recording in earnest in late May, so stay tuned!”
The post Nick D’Virgilio to play on Spock’s Beard’s next album appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
by Blake | Mar 24, 2017 | Prog Report
KANSAS will be expanding their highly successful Leftoverture 40th Anniversary Tour to more parts of the United States in the fall of 2017! Since last September the band has been performing the hit album in its entirety, the first time since it was released 40 years ago. The tour showcases more than two hours of classic KANSAS music including hit songs, deep cuts, and new songs from their new album, The Prelude Implicit.
Based on incredible demand, dates have been confirmed for a final U.S. leg of the Leftoverture 40th Anniversary Tour across cities such as San Francisco, CA; San Diego, CA; Houston, TX; Minneapolis, MN; Topeka, KS; Champaign, IL; Wichita, KS; Knoxville, TN; Toledo, OH; Jacksonville, FL; and many more.
“We are having so much fun doing these Leftoverture 40th Anniversary shows, we just want to keep doing them,” comments KANSAS guitarist and original member Richard Williams. “We had no idea when we started doing these, last fall, that they would be so popular. When we first started discussing this concept, we were just hoping to be able to do ten of these type shows. We would not have predicted we would end up doing nearly 70 of them. I can’t think of a better way to wrap up 2017, before taking a break from the road at the beginning of 2018, to record a new studio album.”
Tickets for most new tour dates can be purchased starting on March 31. More information is available at www.kansasband.com. Additional presale and VIP package information will be available at the band’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/kansasband.
2017 LEFTOVERTURE 40th ANNIVERSARY TOUR DATES:
March 24 Salina, KS The Stiefel Theatre – SOLD OUT
March 25 Tulsa, OK The Brady Theater
March 31 Des Moines, IA Hoyt Sherman Place – SOLD OUT
April 1 Peoria, IL Peoria Civic Center Theater
April 7 Louisville, KY Louisville Palace
April 9 Charleston, WV The Clay Center
April 18 Denver, CO The Paramount
April 20 Salt Lake City, UT Delta Hall at Eccles Theatre
April 22 Las Vegas, NV The Smith Center – Reynolds Hall
April 23 Chandler, AZ Chandler Center for the Arts
April 26 Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
April 28 Portland, OR Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
April 29 Seattle, WA Moore Theater
July 16 Loreley, Germany Night of the Prog Festival
NEWLY ADDED 2017 LEFTOVERTURE 40th ANNIVERSARY TOUR DATES:
August 25 Shreveport, LA Shreveport Municipal Auditorium
August 26 Baton Rouge, LA Baton Rouge River Center Theatre
September 8 Santa Rosa, CA Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
September 9 Stockton, CA Bob Hope Theatre
September 12 San Francisco, CA Warfield Theatre
September 13 Thousand Oaks, CA Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza
September 15 Bakersfield, CA Fox Theater
September 19 San Diego, CA Poway Center for the Arts
September 21 Wichita Falls, TX Memorial Auditorium Wichita Falls
September 22 Amarillo, TX Amarillo Civic Center
September 29 Corpus Christi, TX Selena Auditorium
September 30 Houston, TX Cullen Performance Hall
October 6 Topeka, KS Topeka Performing Arts Center
October 7 Sioux City, IA Orpheum Theatre
October 13 Champaign, IL The Virginia Theatre*
October 14 Evansville, IN Victory Theatre**
October 20 Dodge City, KS United Wireless Center
October 21 Wichita, KS Hartman Arena
October 27 Knoxville, TN Knoxville Civic Auditorium
October 28 Huntsville, AL Mark C. Smith Concert Hall
November 3 Saginaw, MI Dow Events Center Theater
November 4 Toledo, OH Stranahan Theater
November 10 Waukegan, IL Genesee Theatre
November 11 Appleton, WI Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
November 17 Madison, WI Capitol Theater
November 18 Minneapolis, MN State Theatre
November 24 Buffalo, NY University at Buffalo Center for the Arts
November 25 Akron, OH The Goodyear Theater
December 1 North Charleston, SC North Charleston Performing Arts Center
December 2 Jacksonville, FL Florida Theatre
December 8 Pembroke Pines, FL Pembroke Pines City Center
December 9 The Villages, FL Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center
*Public On Sale is April 7 at 10AM local time
**Public On Sale is April 14 at 10AM local time
The post Kansas announce more dates for Leftoverture tour appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
by Blake | Mar 24, 2017 | Prog Report
Anathema are back after an extended hiatus since releasing 2014’s spellbinding Distant Satellites. Their eleventh full-length, The Optimist is due for release on June 9th through Kscope.
Anathema, led by brothers Daniel and Vincent Cavanagh, along with drummer John Douglas, singer Lee Douglas, bassist Jamie Cavanagh and keyboardist Daniel Cardoso began recording The Optimist in the winter of 2016 at Attica Audio in Donegal, Ireland and then finished at Castle Of Doom studios in Glasgow with producer Tony Doogan [Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian, Super Furry Animals] at the helm.
You can check out a preview of The Optimist on this short trailer:
Tracklisting:
32.63N 117.14W (01:18)
Leaving It Behind (04:27)
Endless Ways (05:49)
The Optimist (05:37)
San Francisco (04:59)
Springfield (05:49)
Ghosts (04:17)
Can`t Let Go (05:00)
Close Your Eyes (03:39)
Wildfires (05:40)
Back To The Start (11:41)
The post Anathema reveal new album details appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
by Blake | Mar 23, 2017 | Prog Report
Genesis guitar virtuoso and Hall of Fame legend, Steve Hackett is set to release his latest album ‘The Night Siren’ tomorrow, March 24th, 2017 through InsideOut Music (Sony). As implied in the title, ‘The Night Siren’ is a wake-up call… the warning of a siren sounding in this era of strife and division. The new album features the already released singles, “Behind the Smoke” and “In The Skeleton Gallery”.
Today, with his European tour having just begun, a live rehearsal video of the instrumental track ‘El Niño’ has been launched, and you can see that here:
The post Steve Hackett releases rehearsal video for “El Nino” appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
by Blake | Mar 23, 2017 | Prog Report
For Spock’s Beard’s 4th album, the group decided to make some headway commercially with an album of a few long songs and more short songs than on previous albums. The long 21 minute epic “The Healing Colors of Sound” was also broken up into 7 tracks on the cd. The band would release the track “Skin” as a single.
While not ranked alongside V and Snow as one of their best albums, there are a number of great songs on the collection including the title track, “Crack the Big Sky” and “The Healing Colors of Sound”.
Bassist Dave Meros talked about Day For Night with The Prog Report, “After Beware Of Darkness there was a feeling that we should try to crossover into the rock market a little more, so Kindness Of Strangers did that to a degree, and then Day For Night did it even more so. Day For Night got a little blowback from the hard line proggers for being “too pop”, but we thought Day For Night was an excellent record, and Day For Night was also the album where we first started touring in Europe and there was a lot of excitement there, so it wasn’t all bad news.”
The post Spock’s Beard’s 4th album Day For Night released 18 years ago appeared first on The Prog Report.
Source:: Prog Report
