Falconer @ ProgPower, Part 1: Introduction

Everybody has That One Band.

Unfortunately for a lot of us, our One Band is a band that never goes on tour. Especially sad for those of us who live in the United States, and have favorite bands residing in Europe, meaning that even when they do go on tour, they don't come anywhere near us. I actually have a few of these bands, but one of them stands out - because their singer is a god at whose voice I fall down in worship. This is the story of what was truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see my vocal god and the kick-ass band he sings in.

Seven years ago, I fell in love with a voice. That voice was Mathias Blad’s on Falconer’s 2008 album, Among Beggars and Thieves. Falconer was a band I had never heard of until that year, when their new album began receiving ‘airplay’ on a power metal station on internet radio. His voice was what drew me to the band, and he quickly became my favorite vocalist. His voice spoke to me in ways I couldn’t describe. It took a little while for the songs to grow on me, but once they did, I became a huge Falconer fan (a.k.a. Falconite), and not just a Mathias Blad fan. Falconer has since become one of my favorite bands, for both its vocalist and its songwriting and musicianship. Mathias has also been my all-time favorite singer for a number of years now, a throne I don't think can ever be stolen from him.

Six years ago, during the unfortunate time I spent in Billings, Montana, I created a ‘demand’ on Eventful for Falconer to perform there. Eventful, as I’m sure you can guess from the name, is a website for concerts and other events. One of its claims to fame (if you can call it that) was being the place where people could ‘demand’ that the movie Paranormal Activity be shown in their city, back when the movie had first come out and was being hyped as an independent B-movie that would only be shown in a few cities. I thought Paranormal Activity looked like it might be a good movie (I was wrong) so I joined the demand, which resulted in being automatically assigned an account with Eventful. I’ve barely used it since then, but I did join demands for a few bands I wanted to see live. Falconer was the only demand I ever created. When prompted to write a description of my demand, I wrote, “I need to see Mathias Blad live if it’s the last thing I do.”

Unfortunately, I knew this demand would do no good because (a) metal bands from Sweden rarely perform in Billings, MT. In fact, metal bands in general rarely perform in Billings, MT. And (b) Falconer had only done a handful of live shows in their entire history as a band. None of those shows had been in the United States, to my knowledge at the time (as it turns out, one of them had, but it had been a long time ago during the days of Kristoffer Göbel on vocals).

I honestly thought that I would never see them live, at least not without winning the lottery and traveling to Sweden, or possibly to Wacken Open Air or somewhere like that. (WOA is, of course, on my bucket list.) I actually thought that it would be more likely for me to somehow wind up seeing Mathias Blad sing in a musical on a stage in Sweden than for Falconer to ever come to the United States. Seriously, I thought the odds of that happening were actually a lot higher. Never in a million years did I dream that the entire band would end up playing in the United States. They were the one band that I thought I would never see.

Then, one year ago, I won the lottery.

No, not literally. I’m still broke. Especially after this show. But one year ago, I received the news that Falconer would be a studio-only band after September 11, 2015. Which didn't change much of anything considering how infrequently they played live anyway. But there was one thing about that news that would change things for me: they would be playing their final live show at 2015’s ProgPower USA festival in Atlanta, Georgia. In the United States.

I. Flipped. Out. My reaction was literally that of someone who'd just won a million dollars, complete with the jumping up and down and screaming. I remember the exact moment I received this news. At the time, I lived in a house in Tempe, Arizona with two male roommates I had found on Craigslist. I lived there for a grand total of two months after moving back to the Phoenix area. I had just moved across the country, and hadn’t gotten back on my feet yet. I had been unemployed for two weeks so far and had no job prospects in sight just yet. I had very little money, if any money at all after such a big move. I was in the kitchen cooking some ramen noodles, and casually scrolling through Facebook on my phone when I saw a post from my friend Joan, who goes to ProgPower every year and is also a huge Falconite. The post was made to guitarist Jimmy Hedlund’s timeline, though I didn’t even notice that at first. All I saw was a reference to Joan’s “raptor shriek,” which she claimed could probably be heard all the way in Sweden, upon seeing the announcement video for the following year. Seeing the words “raptor shriek,” “Sweden,” and “next year’s ProgPower,” I immediately put two and two together... and stopped breathing.

Despite my financial situation, thoughts like “I can’t afford to go to Atlanta” or “How am I going to pay for this?” never entered my mind. I went straight to “I’M GOING TO SEE FALCONER” territory, and never looked back. Yes, it was three time zones away on the opposite end of the country, but it was still in MY country. Hell, even if it had been in Mexico or Canada… Falconer was going to be on the same continent as me, and I was going to be there. It was hard for me catch my breath for a moment. I couldn’t form cohesive sentences for several minutes, other than “OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. I’M GOING TO SEE FALCONER.”

And see them, I did. I even lived to tell the tale.

Now that my dream has come true, I have decided to do a song-by-song review of their entire setlist, which I will post in Part 2 of this review series, as my introduction has taken up enough space already. I had been looking forward to this for too long to do a one-page review of the entire show, so I’m splitting it into 3 parts: the introduction, the song-by-song, and then a general review of the overall performance and atmosphere, as well as a few extra songs I would have liked added to the setlist. There will also be a fourth (maybe even a fifth) entry, which will NOT be all about Falconer, but about my overall experience at ProgPower, the friends I met there, and the other bands I saw perform.

Stay tuned...