Are any of you guys going to NEARfest?

I saw Liquid Tension Experiment back in 1999, it was a great show. Tony's basswork (all on Stick when I saw him then) was fast precise and furious!

Great show.

More at:

http://www.nearfest.com/event/schedule.asp

Looks like a great lineup... Fish/Peter Hammill/echolyn/Discipline/Banco all made huge musical impressions on me when I was getting into the whole prog scene.

I was holding out on committing to attending a prog festival because there were rumors my friend Phideaux ( http://myspace.com/phideaux ) might get invited to one but it never panned out. NEARFest seems to have a good draw, from what I understand it sold out in 35 minutes this year.

I've been twice. The first time had California Guitar Trio with Tony Levin, and Porcupine Tree, and a few other bands I honestly can't remember. orcupine Tree was so loud the light bulbs in the ceiling of the hall started shattering.

I performed outside the concert hall during one of the set changes. I saw Tony as I was just about to play and he tried to introduce me to his "friend Larry," but the moment passed as we were both rushing, me and Mr. Fast. Ah, lost opportunities....

The second time I was only there briefly, doing some Stick demos at a booth. It''s a relatively small event (a little over 1000 tickets I think) but I remember selling a lot of CDs, and prog fans are rabid fans.