"We're very pleased to report that the Seaprog lineup is now complete with the addition of Saturday's headliner, miRthkon," writes the folks behind Seaprog. "This 'Oaklandish Chambercore' ensemble has been making waves in the world of creative music for several years now, and will be playing the prestigious Rock in Opposition (RIO) festival in France later this year. We're honored to bring the group to Seattle. The lineup for the June 28-30 event is now as follows:"

Landmarq (UK), Knight Area (NL), Martigan (DE) and Silhouette (NL) are the bands for the 7th edition of ROCK ITtervoort. For the first time in history their will be 4 bands performing at ROCK ITtervoort. As usual these bands come all across Europe. This year one English, one German and two Dutch bands will visit the small village Ittervoort to do their shows.

This annual prog-event will take place at the 19th of April 2013 at C.C. de Mortel in Ittervoort (NL). Ittervoort is situated in the Euregio, in the south of the Netherlands, nearby Germany and Belgium. In previous editiosn of ROCK ITtervoort bands as Arena, Pendragon and Riverside did some outstanding and mostly sold-out shows. Over the years, the festival has had visitors from many European countries and even from Turkey and the US.

Well, I'll be darned! We take an unplanned, intermittent, sabbtical for nearly ... six months ... and surprising things happened whilst we were gone. None more surprising perhaps to me (your dear editor) than reading that there is going to be a BajaProg this coming April! This is a good surprise, especially for the West Coast prog crowd who are, I'm sure, hoping for another chapter of the CalProg story (though Jim does plan on-off events, but...).

Anyway, enough editorializing, here's the scoop. April 3 - 6, 2013 in Mexicali, Mexico there will be staged BajaProg 2013. What bands are on the bill? Well, it's a corker, as they say...

We're pleased to announce that legendary Swedish band The Flower Kings have been signed for the 2013 edition of the Rites Of Spring festival.

When progressive rock rose from the ashes in the 1990's, the so-called Scandinavian wave of progressive rock bands were among the leading bands that reinvigorated the genre. Not that progressive rock ever died, but for almost 20 years it was a style that wasn't covered by the music press and for music fans the result was that this kind of music disappeared. But in the second half of the 1990's the internet started to grow and progressive rock alongside it. And The Flower Kings were among the most discussed bands on the message boards of old.

Since we've been out of the loop for what seems like forever, but has "only" been four months, we have missed out on sharing with you the band announcements for RoSFest (and I'm sure some for this past September's ProgDay as well). To rectify that oversight, here is the omnibus edition... and while the headline is a Marillion reference, to date, Marillion is not on the bill nor does it suggest anything of the like... all it means is, well, frankly, in addition to Rush (also not on the bill), I've been listening to Marillion... ah, but let me get out of the way and let Fest Organizer George Roldan "take over."

July 20, 2012: We're happy to announce that Polish band Believe have been signed for the 2013 edition of the Rites of Spring Festival.

Sweden Rock 2012 hadn't even happened yet when the following announcement about 2013's festival was made on May 20!

"It is a great honor, in more ways than one, for us to introduce Rush as the first announcement for Sweden Rock Festival 2013. Firstly, they are one of the most legendary and influential rock bands in history with total album sales exceeding 40 million; secondly, this marks the Sweden Rock Festival debut that so many have longed for; and last but not least - this will be Rush’s first appearance at a European festival in 35 years!

"We regret to inform the progressive rock community that the legendary German symphonic prog band Eloy must cancel its planned NEARfest Apocalypse headline appearance due to a serious medical exigency," reported NEARfest on May 24. "Back in March, lead guitarist/singer Frank Bornemann was struck by a delivery van while riding his bicycle. Frank's injuries required surgery, hospitalization, and extensive rehabilitation. Nevertheless Frank was hopeful he could recover in time to perform with Eloy at NEARfest in June. Unfortunately some recent setbacks in his recovery have made this impossible, with doctors verifying that any traveling or gigging could lead to the damage becoming permanent.

It is with the greatest of pleasure the The Ministry of Prog proudly presents, for your delectation and delight, the inaugural Proguphoria festival to be held at the rather spiffing Mr Kyps rock and roll venue in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset, England on Saturday 20th October 2012 from 4pm onwards. This celebration of modern popular music will feature several well respected bands loosely associated with the rock/progressive genre, namely:

Galahad will be playing a selection of songs from both their new studio albums Battle Scars and Beyond The Realms Of Euphoria as well as a few golden galaclassics.

On the 25th of October 2011, the region of Liguria in Italy suffered the fury of a rain storm so fierce that the city of Genoa and the surrounding areas were devastated, causing death and destruction. What remains is the picture of a whole region scarred so deeply it seems impossible that it may ever return to its original beauty.

As the area surrounding the city of La Spezia is one of the most hit by the storm it has been decided to hold a prog/rock music festival in the city of La Spezia.

While a few days have passed since this news broke, but... here's the official sattement from OhioProg: "OhioProg 2012 turned to crowd funding platform to make tickets available for the 3-day progressive rock festival in an attempt to ensure enough people would attend to cover the costs and expenses of holding such a grand event. The Kickstarter campaign ended on January 2, 2012 with only 60 tickets pledged. A total of around 400-450 tickets pledged at the various levels would have reached the funding goal.

"The festival adopted Kickstarter’s project criteria in that, it is all-or-nothing funding. So, since the goal was not reached OhioProg 2012 has been canceled. Also, because funding on Kickstarter is all or nothing, all pledges have been automatically canceled.