Official ProgStock Press Release:
US prog festival Progstock continues their virtual live shows into September with another three weeks of concerts confirmed, including a Virtual ProgDay over the weekend of September 5/6. ProgStock Presents Virtual Series was originally announced in July in response to this year’s event being cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As part of their livestream on September 12, Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius will be premiering their new music video, “Storm Surge.” It features Saga’s Michael Sadler on vocals, Rachel Flowers on piano and flute, Fernando Perdomo on guitar, and Ruti Celli (Sound of Contact) on cello. Deninzon met Michael and Rachel when they all performed at ProgStock 2018.
Says organiser Thomas Palmieri of the festival’s decision to go online: “The pandemic has closed music venues and brought in-person live music performances to a screeching halt. Accordingly, we have had to cancel ProgStock 2020. We don’t know how long we will have to wait before it will be truly safe to stage a festival, but we will be back!“
To keep the musicians and fans engaged, this team has been curating a number of online Progressive Rock events. Early on in the pandemic, they curated the virtual stage for Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway, NJ, for the UnCancelled Music Festival. They started the “ProgStock Presents Virtual Series” on August 1, 2020, and plan to continue as long as musicians are out of work and fans have no live shows to attend. All the artists taking part in this year’s streamed events are being encouraged to donate some or all of the proceeds from their show to the Bob Moog Foundation.
ProgStock Presents Virtual Series: September shows
05/09: Stop Motion Orchestra, Vespero, VAK, Les Evades
06/09: Hooffoot, Mad Fellaz, Ghost Rhythms, Gnarbot
12/09: Dave Bainbridge, Frogbelly & Symphony, Dark Beauty, Joe Deninzon and Stratospheerius
19/09: Manticore, Tribe of Names, Aaron Clift, Discipline (and friends)
The individual performances on StageIt are separate shows. Audience members will purchase a ticket to each performance individually, not the whole night as a block. Some shows will be 45 minutes and others will be 90, so we may have as few as 3 shows or as many as 6 on each Saturday night.
StageIt is all about experiencing music in the moment, duplicating the live music experience as closely as possible. You have to be there to see it, just like you would in a venue, so shows are only available on their site during the performance window. Some of our artists may choose to capture their shows and make them available later on some other service (YouTube, Facebook) and we (ProgStock) may even capture some of the shows, with artist permission, of course, but the shows will not be available on StageIt outside the show window.
Details for StageIt:
Shows will be presented on StageIt. To participate, you must have a StageIt account. If you don’t yet have an account, here’s what to do:
- Go to stageit.com (on a laptop or desktop, the site is not mobile-friendly for opening accounts, purchasing Notes/tickets, but works on mobile for viewing)
- Click Sign Up (upper right corner)
- Create a username and password
- Click “Buy Notes” (10 notes = $1) – The StageIt system sells Notes in minimum intervals of $5 (50 Notes).
- After choosing how many Notes you want to purchase, choose your payment type – it’ll be credit card or PayPal (with PayPal, you do not need to have an account, you can use a credit/debit card as a guest).
- Go to the direct ticket link for ProgStock Presents and purchase tickets to the shows you want to watch.
- You will also be able to tip the artists before, during and after the shows with Notes. Consider loading up your account now, so you can have some fun with tipping while supporting your favorite artists. Tips show up on the screen as colored bars and many artists view them as the alternative to applause!
Pricing: Starting in September, 45-minute shows will have a minimum ticket price of $4.00 (40 Notes) and 90-minutes shows will have a minimum ticket price of $8.00 (80 Notes), with prices in US Dollars. You can pay more, if you have the means, and you will also be able to tip during the show with your StageIt Notes. We encourage you to support the artists at this difficult time.
Show Archive:
Saturday, August 1:
5PM: Peter Jones of Tiger Moth Tales (45 minutes)
6PM: Julie Slick – Bassfest (90 minutes)
8PM: Rachel Flowers (90 minutes)
Saturday, August 8:
4PM: Markus Reuter of Stick Men (45 minutes)
5PM: Jean Pageau of Mystery (45 minutes)
6PM: Jimmy Keegan of Pattern-Seeking Animals (45 minutes)
7PM: Paul Bielatowicz of Carl Palmer Band (45 minutes)
8PM: Dennis Atlas of Initiator and Arch Allies (90 minutes)
Saturday, August 15:5PM: Frogbelly and Symphony (45 minutes)Frogbelly and Symphony has been postponed to September 12 at 6PM
6PM: Gabriel Agudo (45 minutes)
7PM: André Cholmondeley of Project/Object (45 minutes)
8PM: Bob Richardson of Cell15 (90 minutes)
Saturday, August 22:
4PM: IO Earth Acoustic (45 minutes) – NEW!
5PM: The Holzman/Getter Collective (45 minutes)
6PM: Beledo (45 minutes)
7PM: Mile Marker Zero (45 minutes)
8PM: McNally Waters (90 minutes)
