Historic Town Becomes Prog Rock Hub

My decade-long tradition of heading to Bethlehem, PA for a thing called NEARFest ground to a halt when the fest was canceled this year. Sales were lagging; it is not all a cake walk on easy street, so to speak, when you are following a musical niche populated mainly by middle aged people (overwhelmingly guys) who were enamored of the odd metered and intricate music of the 1970s' Genesis (when Phil Collins was known almost entirely for his...drumming), Gentle Giant, ELP, Crimson..

Flash forward to the 21st century and those bands that filled large venues are pretty much over with, replaced by, among other things, these esoteric weekend festivals that bring 8 or 10 acts to a stage in front of 500 or so appreciative fans.

So with NEARfest canceled, I accompanied my childhood bud and fellow music nut Gerald to historic Gettysburg and the lovely, historic Majestic Theater right smack downtown in the center of gettysburg, to take in the wonder that was ROSfest. The ROS standing for "Rites of Spring". Whatever. It's about the music. ROSfest accomplished what I had hoped it would - I enjoyed a weekend transported into the netherworld of great music, known and unknown, simple and complex. Anyhow, here is a brief rundown of the eight acts we caught over a Saturday and Sunday. In between, we rushed out to the historic battlefield, which I have already summarized about two posts ago.
Half of Osada Vida, from Poland. Good, solid music that few over hear had ever heard before. (By the way, because of my seat's position and that of other items like most bands' keyboards, I seldom could see a drummer behind his kit, so neither will you).

Part of the band, Phideaux, named for its leader and songwriter, Phideaux Xavier (two X's in one name!) The guy with the guitar. Ironic that a band with an album named "Doomsday Afternoon" was playing on the afternoon of May 21, when indeed we were supposedly facing such an afternoon. Anyway, although Phideaux's music is loaded with songs about our self-imposed doom (or so I think), I love his stuff.

The guy at the keyboard is Erik Norlander. He plays this array of crazy old Moog and other analog synthesizers and he works at shaping the most awesome sounds out of those things. Note the guy in the back playing with the patch cords and knobs on the various oscillators and thingies associated with the Moog synth. That bunch of electronic boxes in the back is known as the "wall of doom".
More Moog mania. This is Claudio Simonetti, the man behind the Italian band Daemonia. He has scored a lot of scary movies in his time, fronted a band named Goblin, and I believe that is his niche. His band played a variety of keyboard-led music, both scary and quite pleasantly melodic. Started by playing the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Ah, Mars Hollow, a California band that just lays down well-constructed music, great songs that run the range from up to down. Well done, lads. Possibly best of show.

Also possibly best of show - District 97, from Chicago. These guys (and gal) look like kids but play like the prog rock monsters that they are. They just about brought the house down, and vocalist Leslie Hunt was fully capable of dancing around on stage to the beat, whether it was in 4/4, 7, 13, or some larger prime number.

After the manic, metallic, sometimes quirky music of District 97, the sounds of Britain's The Reasoning seemed to bring a little more conventionality to the stage. Good songs well sung, and vocalist Rachel Cohen is pursuing a PhD in something or other...

We ended as we began, with a Polish band - Quidam. Interesting, eclectic blend, covering a couple well-known songs, but mainly playing their own stuff. They had it all - good bluesy guitar player, excellent violinist and flautist, great guy on keys... A good finish to a very fun fest.